Footwear designer John de los Santos last year released several limite

I choose B after 1'21''.
a)The designers who compete most directly with de los Santos will not produce similar lines of limited-edition sneakers in the near future.
There is no other suppy of these sneakers but Santos. Santos will have a monopoly on those. Sound good, we save A in the list.
b)Consumers' willingness to pay higher prices for the exotic sneakers was not influenced by the relative scarcity of
those sneakers.
Limit supply => high price. B is good, let save it in the list.
c)De los Santos's customer base is not shifting in the direction of younger consumers who prefer bolder styles.
Not relevant
d)De los Santos's sneakers are not priced substantially higher than those of the designers who compete most directly with him.
Not relevant
e)The workmanship of de los Santos's sneakers is of such high quality that it is impossible for lower-budget shoemakers to produce counterfeit versions of them.
Counterfeit, uhm, it is interesting. But the customers who paid the high price to get the real one are unlikely to buy fake products. Hence the answer is wrong.

Between A and B. B is stronger.

According to me the answer should be 'E'.

The workmanship of de los Santos's sneakers is of such high quality that it is impossible for lower-budget shoemakers to produce counterfeit versions of them.
People are paying more because those sneakers are not available anywhere else but De los Santos.
If they get same kind of product at cheaper price then obviously they will prefer those over the expensive ones.

Pls post the OA

Premise1-J D los released several limited editions of his exotic colored sneakers
Counter-Price higher than competition. Yet sold out and 4 times more cost in reseller market
Premise 2- production of exotic colors almost same as traditional
Conclusion- D los can earn more by increasing the exotic colored prints

One confusuion here related to the explanation for option (C) : how we can say that "bolder style" = limited edition of the sneaker in exotic colors and prints

It would be appreciated if the OA is given rather than waiting for the discussion.OA can be given and then ans can be discussed too.

The answer is (B). Let's discuss why. Then we will talk about why (A) and (E) are incorrect.

Conclusion: Make higher % of sneakers in exotic prints to earn a higher profit per unit.

An assumption is necessary to be true for the conclusion to be true. If we negate the assumption, the conclusion should not be possible. If there is a confusion, we negate the assumption and then see whether the conclusion can hold. If the conclusion can still hold, then that option is not an assumption.

What is the assumption in concluding that making more sneakers will bring higher profit per unit? The assumption is that the price of exotic print sneakers will not come down if higher % of sneakers are in exotic prints i.e. scarcity is not the reason for the higher price. If this assumption were not true and the price does come down if higher % of sneakers are made in exotic prints, then he may not be able to earn a higher profit per unit.

(A) - We are talking about limited-edition sneakers here. As long as the designers keep the exotic sneakers rare, there may not be a problem. The price may not come down. Let's assume that (A) is not true and designers do come up with similar limited edition sneakers. Still, the price may not go down.

(E) - This option has nothing to do with regular and exotic prints. If lower-budget shoemakers are able to make counterfeits, they would have been making it for all shoes. Hence, they will have no new effect on the price of the genuine de los Santos shoes.

The thing that could have a direct effect on the price of exotic shoes is how many exotic shoes there are. Answer has to be (B).

Hi karishma,

Could you please explain why option C is incorrect.

smartguy595

c)De los Santos's customer base is not shifting in the direction of younger consumers who prefer bolder styles.
This is completely out of scope choice. The option says that De.....'s customer base does not concentrate much on youngsters who prefer something else. The passage is about new model of sneaker in exotic manner. We have no information regarding the age group of he customer base. It is possible that D's customer base is not concentrating on specific clan of youngsters with specific taste(bolder style) and is still successful or it can be vice-versa. This need not be assumed to validate the argument.

The best way to test an assumption is to negate an option and see if that collapses the argument conclusion. i.e.,
De los Santos's customer base is shifting in the direction of younger consumers who prefer bolder styles.
This does not collapse the argument and instead seems to strengthen the same. Not quite although.

I hope this helps..................

I like explanations from VeritasPrepKarishma and Nevernevergiveup.
But I must add.
The simplest way to bear these regular CR assumption questions is.
1. The argument is very tight: little or no logic gap. So the right options are ALWAYS in negative form. Pick out the options in neg form and guess with them.

2. Knowing what the stimulus is about to test b4 seeing the question.
Here there is a supposition that the conclusion MUST happen given the given facts. The correct option MUST show that the reverse will not happen.
If you remove the NOT in the correct option the opposite of the conclusion begins to manifest.

B says the goods are not luxury/exclusive goods.
If they are luxury goods then increasing their number in the market reduces their appeal hence fall in demand. The other options are cock n bull.



PS: GMAT tests you on what you are going to deal with as a business manager. real psychology of economics, the economic realities, social/political impact on economics of biz.



Thanks.

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