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MGMAT CR Question

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MGMAT CR Question

by spetznaz » Tue Jul 22, 2014 7:32 am
The Action-Packed Gaming Company, based on the success of the previous season's video game featuring the character Sam Li, of the popular Fist of Awe series of martial arts movies, developed for the current season a similar martial arts game featuring a new character who is also a martial arts master. The new game had improved 3-D graphics, enhanced multiplayer capability, and dozens of new martial arts moves developed by real-life masters. However, marketing surveys showed that teenagers were uninterested in this new game, and the game sold very poorly.

The passage implies that an explanation for the failure of the new game is based on doubt regarding which of the following assumptions?


a) Teenagers make purchasing decisions based on the technological merits of video games, not the name recognition of the games' main characters.


b) Buyers of video games prefer to purchase games based on popular movies.


c) The Fist of Awe series of movies was extremely popular with teenagers who regularly purchase video games.


d) Technological improvement from one video game to the next does not guarantee a corresponding increase in sales.


e) The successful video game may have benefited from advertising associated with the Fist of Awe movies, a benefit the failed video game did not have.

OA : a

Experts please enlighten :-). What should be the best approach to solve such question within 2 minutes? I found the wordings of the question stem to be confusing !
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by [email protected] » Tue Jul 22, 2014 2:27 pm
Hi spetznaz,

This is an example of an inference question; to answer it, we need to understand the "facts" listed in the prompt, then find an answer that logically extends from those facts.

The Facts:
-Last season, a gaming company created a video game featuring a martial arts character named Sam Li (who is also in a popular series of martial arts movies).
-This Sam Li game was SUCCESSFUL (implying that it sold many copies).
-For the current season, the company is created a similar game with a NEW martial arts character.
-This new game had better graphics, multiplayer capability and dozens of new martial arts moves.
-This new game was NOT popular with TEENAGERS and the game sold poorly.

We're essentially asked to explain why this new same sold poorly; the designers of the game had an assumption about the game that was wrong - what was it?

The Logic:
The two games were both about martial artist characters. The older game was based on a popular character from a popular series of movies, while the newer game was based on a new character (and NOT on the movies). The newer game was technologically "better" than the old game. With this information, I have to assume that the older game sold better because of the popular character and the popular movies that it was based on. When the designers made a new game without the popular character (and the popular movie tie-in), sales dropped. The company made a mistake by assuming that a newer, higher-technology game was what the buyers (note: TEENAGERS) wanted. The answer that matches is A.

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by GMATGuruNY » Thu Jul 24, 2014 2:35 am
The question stem asks for the manufacturer's assumption.
Thus, we can rephrase the passage and the question stem as follows:
The Action-Packed Gaming Company, based on the success of the previous season's video game featuring the character Sam Li, of the popular Fist of Awe series of martial arts movies, developed for the current season a similar martial arts game featuring a new character who is also a martial arts master. The new game had improved 3-D graphics, enhanced multiplayer capability, and dozens of new martial arts moves developed by real-life masters. The manufacturer predicts that the new game will be even more successful than the previous season's game.

The manufacturer's prediction depends on which of the following assumptions?
The assumption is WHAT MUST BE TRUE for the conclusion to be valid.

Answer choice A:
For the new game to succeed, IT MUST BE TRUE that teenagers make purchasing decisions based on the technological merits of video games, not the name recognition of the games' main characters.
Yes: if name recognition is important, then the new game will not succeed, since its main character lacks name recognition.

The correct answer is A.
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