Challenging CR

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Challenging CR

by chaitanya.mehrotra » Sat Jun 25, 2011 9:27 am
A recent article asserted that, from 2002 to 2006, Band 1 generated the most revenue of any band in the world. The article based this claim on the fact that in each of those years, Band 1 sold the most albums, and Band 1's highly anticipated first concert tour was the highest grossing concert tour in the industry in 2006.
Which of the following, if true, weakens the article's assertion?

A. The band with the highest grossing tour in the industry in 2002 did not tour again in the next four years.
B. Band 1 typically puts on extraordinarily expensive concerts with elaborate staging, video displays and light shows.
C. From 2002 to 2006, other bands released concert film and video anthology DVDs that were extremely lucrative.
D. All of Band 1's albums released from 2002 to 2006 were poorly received by the music industry.
E. Internet piracy of music resulted in depressed album sales for the period 2002 to 2006 relative to earlier years.

Doubt:a)Why is A wrong. It can be interpretated as band A not being able to tour for next 3 years post 2002. Thus it could affect the overall revenues for Band A.
b) Option C can also be interpreted as that even though other bands released concert film and video anthology DVDs yet revenues from these DVD sales might not have surpassed Band A revenues?

OA is c

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by vikram4689 » Sat Jun 25, 2011 9:53 am
Well A is wrong because it does not talk about Band 1. At best, it can strengthen the conclusion that the band that earned max. in 2002 did not re-appear.

I do not think C weakens for the same reason you stated.

If i have to mark then i would mark D.
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by Ian Stewart » Sat Jun 25, 2011 11:20 am
"Weaken" does *not* mean the same thing as "disprove". That's crucially important in GMAT CR. Here we need an answer which suggests that the conclusion might not be true. We do *not* need an answer which *proves* the conclusion is false.

A is not correct, since it's talking about a different band altogether.

B is not correct, since we care about revenues, not about profits, so we don't care if Band 1's concerts were expensive to produce.

C is correct. The argument bases its claim only on album sales and concert revenues. If other bands generated revenue in other ways (films and DVDs), it is possible that those bands earned enough from those other revenue streams to surpass Band 1. Note that the films and DVDs are described as 'extremely lucrative', which suggests they are important revenue sources.

D is not correct, since critical opinion has next to nothing to do with revenue (in real life they might be inversely correlated much of the time).

E is irrelevant since depressed album sales will have affected all bands.
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by catfreak » Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:11 pm
Thanks Ian for the nice explanation.

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by artistocrat » Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:57 pm
Great breakdown Ian. Thanks.