A regional toothpaste company has decided to expand its

Conclusion: Rather than simply expand to the ten most populous cities in the region, the company plans to expand to the ten regional cities in which there is the greatest demand for a new brand of toothpaste.

Premise: A regional toothpaste company has decided to expand its marketing region by ten cities.

Assumption: There are no problems with the plan. The plan to expand into the cities with the greatest demand is better than the alternative of using the ten most populous cities.

This is an assumption question, as evidenced by the phrase the toothpaste company's plan assumes. The passage uses the premise that a regional toothpaste company has decided to expand its marketing region by ten cities in order to conclude that rather than simply expand to the ten most populous cities in the region, the company plans to expand to the ten regional cities in which there is the greatest demand for a new brand of toothpaste.

This argument contains a planning reasoning pattern, as identified by the question stem, which asks about the toothpaste company’s plan, and by the argument itself, which states that the company plans to expand. The company proposes a plan to expand to the ten regional cities in which there is the greatest demand for a new brand of toothpaste. The standard assumption of an argument with a planning reasoning pattern is that there are no problems with the plan. For this argument, one potential problem with the proposed plan is that there is no evidence that targeting the ten cities with the greatest demand will work better than targeting the ten most populous cities, or that the plan will even work at all. Because this is an assumption question, the correct answer choice needs to either confirm the assumption that there are no problems or specifically remove a possible problem with the plan. Evaluate the answer choices, looking for one that reflects this idea.

Choice A: Correct. If, according to the passage, the company plans to expand to the ten regional cities in which there is the greatest demand for a new brand of toothpaste, then there must be a reliable method for determining a city's demand. Since negating this answer makes the conclusion invalid, this answer choice contains a necessary assumption.

Choice B: No. The fact that some of the ten cities will have a greater demand is out of scope. The passage states that the company plans to expand to the ten regional cities in which there is the greatest demand without comparing the demand among those ten regional cities.

Choice C: No. The phrase the ten most populous regional cities and the ten regional cities with the greatest demand will be the same ten cities is extreme language. The passage indicates that there is a difference since it concludes rather than simply expand to the ten most populous cities in the region, the company plans to expand to the ten regional cities in which there is the greatest demand for a new brand of toothpaste.

Choice D: No. The mention of what customers do not care about is out of scope. The passage states that the company plans to expand to the ten regional cities in which there is the greatest demand for a new brand of toothpaste, regardless of the price of the toothpaste.

Choice E: No. The mention of what the company will do someday is out of scope. This argument is only concerned with the company’s immediate plan to expand its marketing region by ten cities.

The correct answer is choice A.