confusing question

This topic has expert replies
Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:22 pm
Location: India
Thanked: 1 times

confusing question

by saurabhdhakad » Fri Aug 16, 2013 9:56 am
ACME Midwest Sales Manager: I am unhappy to report that the Midwest sales office has had a difficult quarter, and our office will not lead the company in sales this quarter as we usually do.

ACME Executive: Fortunately, the South sales office has had a strong performance this quarter. They usually account for around 10% of company sales, but that figure has improved to 25% for this quarter.

One flaw in the ACME Executive's response is that it:

a.does not address the reasons why the ACME Midwest Sales Office had a bad quarter.
b.neglects the possibility that overall sales have increased dramatically.
c.assumes an increase in sales percentage resulted from increased performance.
d.uses percentage data when he should be using absolute number data.
e.neglects to consider other sales offices.

If you related first statement , which state that the company used to lead in sales.
Then second statement states that it used to account for just 10% of total sales and now it is 25% .
Isn't correct answer should be D?
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 234
Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2013 9:00 am
Location: West Virginia
Thanked: 9 times

by Java_85 » Fri Aug 16, 2013 2:58 pm
In my opinion C is the right answer. Although the executive manager says the office had 25% of total sales it does not say how was the performance of the other offices because it's possible that all the offices had less sales performance but compare to other offices mentioned office had less sales decrease.

Hope that helps.

Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:22 pm
Location: India
Thanked: 1 times

by saurabhdhakad » Sat Aug 24, 2013 9:50 am
Agreed. But what is confusing is the manager's argument where he says "our office will not lead the sales in this quater as we usually do". Then it means the 10% is the max sales what the manager's office would have been giving.So we cannot consider 25% is lower in executive's argument.

Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2013 10:46 am

by Nitin.811g » Sat Aug 24, 2013 11:17 am
The executive arguments gives us the information about company's sales. One of the ways to arrive at the answers could be:

Conclusion: the South sales office has had a strong performance this quarter.
Premise: They usually account for around 10% of company sales, but that figure has improved to 25% for this quarter.

How could this premise lead to this conclusion:
Only when we assume that sales is because of the performance and hence IMO [spoiler]( C )[/spoiler]

GMAT/MBA Expert

User avatar
Elite Legendary Member
Posts: 10392
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2013 6:38 pm
Location: Palo Alto, CA
Thanked: 2867 times
Followed by:511 members
GMAT Score:800

by [email protected] » Sat Aug 24, 2013 3:30 pm
Hi saurabhdhakad,

What is the source of this CR question? Whoever wrote it didn't follow traditional GMAT writing patterns, which makes the prompt a bit tougher to understand. If the Sales Manager had added: "As a result, the overall sales of the company will be down this quarter", then the prompt would make more sense and the Executive's flawed response would be easier to decipher.

In either case, the flaw is that the Executive refers to the South office's improvement to 25% of COMPANY SALES as a way to "offset" the Midwest's difficult quarter. But we don't know what TOTAL company sales are. It could be that every branch had a difficult quarter and they all saw their sales drop, but that the South office had a larger percentage of total sales. THAT point doesn't solve the problem of overall sales, and it points to Answer C as the major flaw in the argument.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
Image