A prominent investor who holds a large stake in the Burton Tool company has recently claimed that the company is mismanaged, citing as evidence the company’s failure to slow production in response to a recent rise in its inventory of finished products. It is doubtful whether an investor’s sniping at management can ever be anything other than counterproductive, but in this case it is clearly not justified. It is true that an increased inventory of finished products often indicates that production is outstripping demand, but in Burton’s case it indicates no such thing. Rather, the increase in inventory is entirely attributable to products that have already been assigned to orders received from customers.

In the argument given, the two boldfaced portions play which of the following roles?

A, the first states the position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second provides evidence to undermine the support for the position being opposed;
B, the first states the position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second is evidence that has been used to support the position being opposed.
C, the first states the position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second states the conclusion of the argument as a whole;
D, The first is evidence that has been used to support a position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second provides information to undermine the force of that evidence;
E, The first is evidence that has been used to support a position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second states the conclusion of the argument as a whole;

I will go with C.

It took me 10 minutes to get to the answer that too with 50% confidance in the answer. Hope this won't happend on real GMAT.
_________________

SAID BUSINESS SCHOOL, OXFORD - MBA CLASS OF 2008

I too vote for C.

Used similar reasoning as plusbbu's, and with same confidence as ps_dahiya's.

Atlease we are in sync!
_________________

"To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed."

- Bernard Edmonds

C 4 Me too !