Critical Reasoning

Following years of declining advertising sales, the Greenville Times reorganized its advertising sales force 2 years ago.
Before the reorganization, the sales force was organized geographically, with some sales representatives concentrating on city-center businesses and others concentrating on different outlying regions. The reorganization attempted to increase the sales representatives' knowledge of clients' businesses by having each sales rep. deal with only one type of industry or retailing. After the reorg., the advertising sales increased.

In assessing whether the improvment in advertising sales can properly be attributed to the reorganization, it would be helpful to find out each of the following EXCEPT.

(A) 2 years ago, what portion of Greenville Times's total revenue was generated by advertising sales?

(B) Has the circulation of Greenville Times increased substantially in the past two years?

(C) Has there been a substantial turnover in the personnel in the advertising sales force over the last 2 years?

(D) Before the sales reorganization, had the sales representatives found it difficult to keep up with relevant developments in all types of businesses to which they were assigned?

(E) Has the economy in Greenville and the surrounding regions been growing rapidly over the last 2 years?

IMO E

Vineet,

I thought so too. But surprisingly, the OA is A.

E is out of scope. correct me if I am wrong.

A seems to be a viable option.

My Opinion: The argument already indicates that REORGANISATION has benefited advertising sales.If we carefully go through the question stem, it asks the question "HAS the reorganisation has helped to improve the advertising sales"!

Try to negate option A. IS that going to add any value for our discussion ? Not really. So A doesnot really do anything in helping us to support that reorganisation has helped to increase the advt sales.

Coming to E" Has the economy in Greenville and the surrounding regions been growing rapidly over the last 2 years?"

If u feel " yes" then certainly growth in economy boost other business also. If u feel "NO" ie no change in economy, then reorganisation has helped a lot to increase the advt sales even in poor economic conditions.

Plz let me know ur comments!

A is correct as to assess the improvement in advertising sales attributed to the reorganization you dont need to know the portion of Greenville Times's total revenue was generated by advertising sales.

@gmatmachoman

I was stuck between A and E. I was looking at E from a different perspective.

How does it matter if the economy of Greenville and surrounding areas has grown or not?
If the advertising reorganization has benifited advertising sales, then even if the economy of Greenville has not grown, the reorgansation can be considered succesful. There might be some industries that might not be affected by an economic slowdown and Greenville times might be one of those industries.

Do you think this logic is incorrect?

On the other hand, A is trying to question a claim made in the argument. The claim is that advertising sales increased after the reorganization. The fact is that the reorganization increased the sales. If we already know that for a fact, then it is not important to know how the portion of Greenville Times's total revenue came out of advertising sales.

But to me, E outweighed A.

I understand your logic though and it makes sense to me.

IMO B

E is not the answer because the answer to E provides an alternative cause to the proposed argument therefore weakening the argument.

If you think of useful to evaluate as weaken questions, this question is asking for the answer that has either the least or no effect on the argument which is A.

Correct me if I am wrong.

In evaluate the argument (or relevant information) questions, the right answer is the one that is directly inside the scope of the argument. So, it will be something that will have a great effect on the argument. In fact, one way of handling these questions is to treat them as hybrid strengthen/weaken: the right answer will be something where if it goes one way it will strengthen the argument, and if it goes the other way it will weaken the argument.

Let's look at choice E:

(E) Has the economy in Greenville and the surrounding regions been growing rapidly over the last 2 years?

What if the economy in Greenville and the surrounding regions HAS been growing rapidly over the last 2 years? Then, the argument is clearly weakened, as this can be an alternative explanation (something other than the reorganization) for why the advertising sales increased: It suggests the increase in the advertising sales is part of some broader phenomenon rather than being causally related to the company's reorganization.

And, what if the economy in Greenville and the surrounding regions HAS NOT been growing rapidly over the last 2 years? Then, the argument is clearly strengthened, as the offered evidence improves in value: now, the advertising sales have increased INSPITE of the fact that sales are dropping everywhere else (or at least have not been increasing anywhere else).

So, by using the Kaplan strategy of treating this as a hybrid strengthen/weaken, we can see that choice E is clearly relevant to the argument; in evalutaing this argument it would be "helpful to find out" the answer to the question in choice E. But because this is an EXCEPT question, we eliminate it.

Choice A is irrelevant because it brings up "portion" or the idea of fraction. The denominator is the company's total revenues. But we don't have info about how the company's total revenue has done over the last 2 years.

Let's apply the same strategy as above. What if the fraction of the total revenue coming from advertising sales has increased? This doesn't mean that advertising sales have actually increased; instead, it could be that total revenue has decreased.

And what if the fraction of total revenue coming from advertising sales has decreased over the last 2 years. Again, this doesn't necessarily mean that advertising sales have decreased; instead, it could be that total revenues have decreased.

So, answering the question in choice A does not help us in better judging the significance of the increase in advertising sales. Therefore, there's no way finding out the answer to the question in choice A would help us in assessing whether the improvement in the advertising sales was or was not due to the reorganization; the argument is unaffected, neither strengthened nor weakened under either scenario.

Therefore, choice A is irrelevant to the argument. But because this is an EXCEPT question, we select it. And because a test-taker well-versed in Kaplan procedures would have characterized the choices and then applied this strategy before going to the answer choices, she could have selected choice A knowing that it was right not having to worry about evalutaing the remaining answer choices, thereby saving her some time and thereby improving her score!

EDIT: Just noticed that this was pretty much the exact same approach that gmatmachoman applied above. Congratulations, gmatmachoman!!

Also, you could have also been more partial to the idea of choice A being the correct answer to the EXCEPT question simply because it seems outside the scope: Knowing the fraction of total revenue coming from advertising sales is unlikely to be helpful in determining whether the increase in advertising sales was caused by the reorganization. Because it is outside the scope, in a regular evaluate the argument question, we would be dubious of it. But because this is an EXCEPT question, this is reason for us to lean towards choice A.

Testluv wrote:In evaluate the argument (or relevant information) questions, the right answer is the one that is directly inside the scope of the argument. So, it will be something that will have a great effect on the argument. In fact, one way of handling these questions is to treat them as hybrid strengthen/weaken: the right answer will be something where if it goes one way it will strengthen the argument, and if it goes the other way it will weaken the argument.

Let's look at choice E:

(E) Has the economy in Greenville and the surrounding regions been growing rapidly over the last 2 years?

What if the economy in Greenville and the surrounding regions HAS been growing rapidly over the last 2 years? Then, the argument is clearly weakened, as this can be an alternative explanation (something other than the reorganization) for why the advertising sales increased: It suggests the increase in the advertising sales is part of some broader phenomenon rather than being causally related to the company's reorganization.

And, what if the economy in Greenville and the surrounding regions HAS NOT been growing rapidly over the last 2 years? Then, the argument is clearly strengthened, as the offered evidence improves in value: now, the advertising sales have increased INSPITE of the fact that sales are dropping everywhere else (or at least have not been increasing anywhere else).

So, by using the Kaplan strategy of treating this as a hybrid strengthen/weaken, we can see that choice E is clearly relevant to the argument; in evalutaing this argument it would be "helpful to find out" the answer to the question in choice E. But because this is an EXCEPT question, we eliminate it.

Choice A is irrelevant because it brings up "portion" or the idea of fraction. The denominator is the company's total revenues. But we don't have info about how the company's total revenue has done over the last 2 years.

Let's apply the same strategy as above. What if the fraction of the total revenue coming from advertising sales has increased? This doesn't mean that advertising sales have actually increased; instead, it could be that total revenue has decreased.

And what if the fraction of total revenue coming from advertising sales has decreased over the last 2 years. Again, this doesn't necessarily mean that advertising sales have decreased; instead, it could be that total revenues have decreased.

So, answering the question in choice A does not help us in better judging the significance of the increase in advertising sales. Therefore, there's no way finding out the answer to the question in choice A would help us in assessing whether the improvement in the advertising sales was or was not due to the reorganization; the argument is unaffected, neither strengthened nor weakened under either scenario.

Therefore, choice A is irrelevant to the argument. But because this is an EXCEPT question, we select it. And because a test-taker well-versed in Kaplan procedures would have characterized the choices and then applied this strategy before going to the answer choices, she could have selected choice A knowing that it was right not having to worry about evalutaing the remaining answer choices, thereby saving her some time and thereby improving her score!

EDIT: Just noticed that this was pretty much the exact same approach that gmatmachoman applied above. Congratulations, gmatmachoman!!

Also, you could have also been more partial to the idea of choice A being the correct answer to the EXCEPT question simply because it seems outside the scope: Knowing the fraction of total revenue coming from advertising sales is unlikely to be helpful in determining whether the increase in advertising sales was caused by the reorganization. Because it is outside the scope, in a regular evaluate the argument question, we would be dubious of it. But because this is an EXCEPT question, this is reason for us to lean towards choice A.

Hi testluv,

I guess, the 2 extremes should be applied to the conclusion. Now 'The advetising revenus has increased' in the question, is it a conclusion to which we can apply the variance test? It seems like just a fact to me. Pl. suggest.

koolguy.rajeev wrote:IMO B

Can anyone please explain How B is evaluating the Argument.

nakul_anand wrote:Following years of declining advertising sales, the Greenville Times reorganized its advertising sales force 2 years ago.
Before the reorganization, the sales force was organized geographically, with some sales representatives concentrating on city-center businesses and others concentrating on different outlying regions. The reorganization attempted to increase the sales representatives' knowledge of clients' businesses by having each sales rep. deal with only one type of industry or retailing. After the reorg., the advertising sales increased.

In assessing whether the improvment in advertising sales can properly be attributed to the reorganization, it would be helpful to find out each of the following EXCEPT.

(A) 2 years ago, what portion of Greenville Times's total revenue was generated by advertising sales?

(B) Has the circulation of Greenville Times increased substantially in the past two years?

(C) Has there been a substantial turnover in the personnel in the advertising sales force over the last 2 years?

(D) Before the sales reorganization, had the sales representatives found it difficult to keep up with relevant developments in all types of businesses to which they were assigned?

(E) Has the economy in Greenville and the surrounding regions been growing rapidly over the last 2 years?

in my opinion, A is correct because it itself was stated in the passage

goyalsau wrote:

koolguy.rajeev wrote:IMO B

Can anyone please explain How B is evaluating the Argument.

B is relevant because if circulation has increased substantially, then that may be why advertising sales increased, and so the increase may not be attributable to the reorganization, and the argument is weakened. Conversely, if circulation hasn't increased, then a potential alternative explanation for the sales increase is removed, and the argument is strengthened.

_____

In relevant information questions, we can apply the hybrid strengthen/weaken test. The right answer will be something where, if it goes one way, the argument is weakened, and if it goes the other way the argument is strengthened.

_____

Note that this argument is testing recognition of a common argument structure: the causal argument.

The argument is that x (reorganization) caused y (sales increase). Such arguments are weakened when an answer choice points to an alternative possible cause (z). (And such arguments are strengthened upon removal of an alternative cause).

Surprisingly, I found the answer in one look! It has to be A. Why are we bothered about advertising sales' contribution to total revenue?? It doesn't matter if it has a high or low contribution.