Reading Comprehension

[akash singhal]

Companies that must determine well in advance of the
selling season how many unites of a new product to
manufacture often under-produce products that sell
well and have overstocks of others. The increased
incidence in recent years of mismatches between
production and demand seems ironic, since point-ofsale
scanners have improved data on consumers'
buying patterns and since flexible manufacturing has
enabled companies to produce, cost-effectively, small
quantities of goods. This type of manufacturing has
greatly increased the number of new products
introduced annually in the United States. However,
frequent introductions of new products have two
problematic side effects. For one, they reduce the
average lifetime of products; more of them are neither
at the beginning of their life (when prediction is
difficult) or at the end of their life (when keeping
inventory is expensive because the products will soon
become obsolete). For another, as new products
proliferate, demand is divided among a growing
number of stock-keeping units (SKU's). Even though
manufacturers and retailers can forecast aggregate
demand with some certainty, forecasting accurately
how that demand will be distributed among the many
SKU's they sell is difficult. For example, a company
may be able to estimate accurately the aggregate
number of shoes it will sell, but it may be uncertain
about which specific types of shoes will sell more than
other types.

Which of the following most accurately describes the
function of the last sentence in the passage?
A. To cite a situation in which the aggregate demand
is more important than the distribution of demand
among SKU's
B. To refute an assertion about the side effects of
flexible manufacturing
C. To illustrate an assertion about companies' ability to
forecast demand
D. To provide an example of ways in which companies
address the difficulties of forecasting demand
E. To note an exception to the author's assertion
about distributing demand among SKU's




OE C

I thought B, What is my mistake in understanding.
Please Explain the Reasoning to Reach the desired option and elimination precess.
Also what type of question is this one?

[MartyMurray]

The key word in choice B that it seems that you did not take into account is "refute."

Getting RC questions right clearly understanding the logic of what is going on and noticing key details. I don't know what type of question this is really, though maybe we could call it a purpose of the sentence question. All the same what kind of question it is does not really matter. What matters is seeing logic and details, as you can see by going through the answer choices.

A) This is pretty much exactly the opposite of what the last sentence is illustrating. So this choice can be easily eliminated.

B) The last sentence does not refute anything. It provides an example of the type of situation discussed in the sentence before the last sentence.

C) The sentence before the last sentence asserts that "Even though manufacturers and retailers can forecast aggregate demand with some certainty, forecasting accurately how that demand will be distributed among the many SKU's they sell is difficult." The last sentence provides an illustrative example of what is being discussed in that assertion. Choice C matches this exactly.

D) This answer is not as easy to eliminate as A is, because the sentence does provide and example, but it provides an example of something other than what is discussed in this answer choice.

E) To eliminate this answer, you need to notice that while what the sentence discusses is indeed related to the author's assertion about distributing demand among SKU's the sentence does not note an exception.

So the correct answer is C.