Literary critics are concerned by a recent trend in book publishing.

I think there is an inherent flaw in the answers that relates to revenue. It needs to assume that cost of per unit book is the same in both the category. Consider if one book in one category costs 100$ and one in another category costs as low as 1 $. Than it would really depend upon the weighted avg of books in both category.

Consider kudos if my post helps!!!

Archit

Sorry but I'm still lost about the confusing wording of option D.

It says include the sales revenue of "genre books" ......... other than the ones in "genre category"

What is the difference between genre books and genre category books? Could somebody explain?

Premise
1: The sales of genre books have increased dramatically over the last five years. [Increase in sale of genre book]
2: The ratio of titles in the classic literature category to titles in the genre category has decreased over the same period. [decreases in the title of literature ]
3: Average sales per title in the genre category have increased greatly over the last five years. [In the lines of #1.]

Conclusion:
, genre books will dominate the market for fiction books, signaling a lamentable decrease in the quality of literature Fiction market would be dominated by genre book.

Which of the following pieces of information would be most useful in evaluating the validity of the critics claim about genre books potential domination of the market for fiction books?

Genre is compared with classic and then a conclusion is made about the fiction market. Based upon the sale of Genre ,its concluded that Genre would rule fiction market.
What if there is another category in fiction that is also growing and in-fact more than Genre.
To evaluate the argument, we need an option that can strengthen/weaken the argument.


A& E out for obvious reason.

A. the likelihood that current trends in the sales of books in the genre and classic literature categories continue

B. the amounts of sales, in dollars, for books in the genre and classic literature categories over the last five years
>> This doesn't help much. What if there is any other category which has higher sale amount. Nothing new from what is already mentioned in premise.

C. a comparison of sales revenues for nonfiction books and genre books over the last five years
>>We need fiction book data as well.

D. sales revenues over the last five years both for genre books and for fiction books other than those in the genre or classic literature categories
>>This would give overall distribution in fiction category for Genre, classic and other books . This is something in the line of what we are trying to evaluate .

E. a numerical estimate of the literary value contained in each of several representative titles of the genre book category.

Here is what the argument and options tell you:

Fiction has 3 sub categories:
Genre (the popcorn fare),
Classics (High Lit value),
Others (Option D introduces this sub category)

The argument goes on to tell you that
the sales of genre books have increased dramatically over the last five years.
An analysis shows that the ratio of titles in the classic category:genre category has decreased over 5 yrs.
Average sales per title in the genre category have increased greatly over the last five years.

Critics fear that if current trends continue, genre books will dominate the market for fiction books

The question is "will genre books dominate the market for fiction books"? How do we find this out?

D. Find the sales revenues over the last five years both for genre books and for fiction books other than those in the genre or classic literature categories.

Find sales revenue over last 5 yrs for "genre books" and for "fiction other than genre or classic".
In other words, find sales revenue over last 5 yrs for "genre books" and for "others".

The point is that critics fear that genre will dominate fiction category. The argument compares genre sub category with classic sub category but gives no info on 'others' sub category which falls within fiction. When we don't know the role of 'others' in fiction, how can we say that 'genre' will dominate the fiction category?

With this information, read the argument and option (D) again. Does it make sense now?

Hi all,

I am posting my reasoning here:

Conclusion: Critics fear that if current trends continue, genre books will dominate the market for fiction books.

Since the conclusion talks about dominating the market of fiction books. We need to know the other players in the fiction book market. We are given info about the classics in the premises but we do not know about mkt share of those other than genre or classic. D talks about that. Thus, only option D is the best in evaluating the argument.

Is this a correct way of reasoning this CR? Is there a better way? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Conclusion: Genre books will domain the fiction books market, if current trends continue.
Premise: Sales of genre books increased, ratio of classic book titles to genre book titles decreased, average sales per genre book title increased.

Assumption:
1. Genre books and Classic book titles are the two biggest titles in fiction book titles( There could be other titles in the fiction book category. argument only compares two categories and based on this comparison goes on and makes a conclusion regarding the overall fiction category).
2. average sales per genre book title has not increased significantly compared to genre book title.

Correct answer choice will evaluate whether these assumptions are valid.

1. likelihood of trend continuing. Out
2. amount of sales in dollars for genre and classic literature. This doesn't give any info regarding other titles. Also, we can't find any info regarding sales per classic book title to genre book title.
3. compares between genre books and all non-fiction books. no information regarding titles excluding genre& classic.
4. compares between genres books and remaining titles( other than genre & classic). This directly tests the argument's assumption.
5. Out- irrelevant

A: WRONG - While this definitely sounds like a good answer, The claim is IF they continue NOT that it is likely to continue. For example, If I keep eating 3000 calories a day, I will gain 10 pounds by the next month. If I am evaluating the validity of this argument, I don't care about the likilihood of me eating 3000 calories a day, I care about "If I keep eating a lot, will I gain weight".
B: WRONG - I know the rates, don't need to know the figures
C: WRONG - I care about fiction books, not nonfiction books
D: RIGHT - If there are 3 categories, genre, classic, and other and I can compare the market sizes for genre, classic, and other. E.g. Genre makes up 10%, classic 5%, Other is 85%, in this case genre/classic is a drop in an ocean.
E: WRONG - Don't see how this is useful, maybe if you could benchmark it, but there is no benchmark or further info provided.

VeritasPrepKarishma
Hi Karishma . Nice explanation
i just have one doubt .
the argument goes on
Literary critics are concerned by a recent trend in book publishing. The sales of genre books——lowbrow fare, such as romance novels, that critics contend have little literary value— —— have increased dramatically over the last five years. In fact, an analysis of the books stocked in bookstores shows that the ratio of titles in the classic literature category ——which includes books with high literary value by such authors as Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and Faulkner——to titles in the genre category has decreased over the same period. In addition, average sales per title in the genre category have increased greatly over the last five years. Critics fear that if current trends continue, genre books will dominate the market for fiction books, signaling a lamentable decrease in the quality of literature to which the average reader is exposed

The whole argument is concerned with the deplorable condition the quality of literature will be because of the decrease in sales of classic category and increase in sales of interesting time killing genre books.
If i have to evaluate as the question stem says will genre book dominate the market of fiction books
Certainly as you stated the "" others "" category i will go for it. What if someone else creeps around and makes the mess even bigger by increasing its sales.
But as far as the term Revenue is concerned this destroys my hopes of choosing answer D.
l. Given the inherent increase in the popuarity of "" other genre books "" the publishers decided that lets
increase the price of books to make more profit , but other fiction books remain same .Same can be true for all fiction books.The sales of the books remain the same .
Then how can we evaluate the argument? Revenue has definitely changed, but not because of the sales of any particular category book has increased or decreased ((( affecting the quality of literature))but because of the change in unit price of a book
Revenue is dependent on both the total sales and the unit price of any book. If revenue has increased it can connote both the increase in the sales ((keeping unit price constant)) or the the increase in unit price (( keeping sales constant))
please correct me if i am wrong .

We are given - "Critics fear that if current trends continue, genre books will dominate the market for fiction books,"

This means that if the current trends of higher revenue per title continues in genre category (because of more sales or higher price or both is immaterial), more authors will write genre books and hence they will dominate the market. So the quality of literature available will decrease (because of too many genre books).
Sales means revenue.

HI Karishma

I completely agree with your reasoning.
But I have a question.
The passage has only talked about sales of genre books. It has not mentioned anything about the sales of classic books.
The only information we know about classic books is that the ratio declined.

IN this light, can we say option B is also a valid option.
If we know the amount of sales of the classic books in comparison to the genre books,
we can also evaluate the answer.

Hoping to hear from you !

Regards
Nitesh

Critics' Claim:
if current trends continue, genre books will dominate the market for fiction books, signaling a lamentable decrease in the quality of literature to which the average reader is exposed

Note the first part of the claim - "If current trends continue..."

We know that genre books are getting more and more popular. Does it matter what the current sales figures of genre and classic books are? No.
Genre could be 200 mil while classic could be 50 mil or 300 mil. It doesn't matter in either case. If the trends continue, genre would overtake classics sooner or later. Stores are stocking fewer classics and more genre books. Sales of genre books have increased dramatically etc.

The pont is can we say that genre will dominate the FICTION category? No, not without knowing what is up with "others". Perhaps others are doing extremely well too, we don't know.

Hello Folks who are following this thread,

Apart from the small learning from this question, I have learnt many other things and I thought that it is worthwhile to share.

Experts please correct me if I go wrong anywhere. egmat souvik101990 VeritasKarishma

SOLUTIONS and ANALYSIS:

• Literary critics are concerned about a recent trend in book publishing
• Sales of genre books
• Lowbow fare, such as romance novels ( that have low literary value as per critics)
○ Have dramatically increased over the last 5 years.
• An analysis of books stocked in bookstores shows that the ratio of titles in classic literature
• Classic literature --> Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and Faulkner
• To genre has decreased
• Overall the above premise is ( ratio of classic literatures and to titles in genre category has decreased)
• THIS PREMISE IS QUESTIONABLE PREMISE ( MEANING WE CAN DRAW INFERENCES FROM IT)
○ We don’t know that the has decreased because less number of classic books now read and genre books being constant
○ Or same classical books read and increase in the titles of the genre books
• The average sales have increased for genre books over 5 years:
• Again two factors:
○ The price of the title in genre books has increased or
○ The number of the title in genre books has increased.
CONCLUSION:
Critics fear that if trends continue, genre books will dominate the market for fiction books,
• Signalling lamentable decrease in quality of literature to which the average reader is exposed.


Here, there are many gaps that should be covered, to reach to the conclusion that has been reached by the author:
Let's consider the cases in which the conclusion will not hold true:

#1: The price of the genre books in all titles have not increased ( considering the # of books increased)
#2: The passage talks about a comparison to genre and classical literature books ( the ratio which is given)
○ Based on that the conclusion is about the fiction and the genre books
§ Earlier I missed this point and this was a grave error,
□ My idea was that the conclusion also talks about the genre and classical books.
§ Here we see a third variable and this was a great mistake I made on this question.
• So our assumption should be:
○ The sales of fictional books are at least comparable to or smaller than the classical genre books and less than the genre books
§ The idea of this assumption is that if this is not valid then our conclusion will break down.
#3: The reader base is exposed to higher level of literature than they are seeing now. Meaning, their level is not already down.

Based on this we explore the answer.

Options
1. the likelihood that current trends in the sales of books in the genre and classic literature categories continue
• This option is already said in a conditional mode by the proponents in the question. ( if these trends… BLAH BLAH )

2. the amounts of sales, in dollars, for books in the genre and classic literature categories over the last five years
• The ratio is already given. I checked this answer first, but now I get it. As per our brainstorming, we see that even if we had some comparison of fiction and classical literature, we would have been at some proper point.

3. a comparison of sales revenues for nonfiction books and genre books over the last five years
• Non fiction books are totally out of scope from here.

4. sales revenues over the last five years both for genre books and for fiction books other than those in the genre or classic literature categories
• This will lead us somewhere. Based on our brainstorming point 2, we see that this option lies in similar logic.

5. a numerical estimate of the literary value contained in each of several representative titles of the genre book category
• Again like non fictional books and our discussion this is irrelevant.

THIS ONE WAS TOUGH ONE

REACHED CORRECT ANSWER THROUGH POE


Literary critics are concerned by a recent trend in book publishing. The sales of genre books——lowbrow fare, such as romance novels, that critics contend have little literary value——have increased dramatically over the last five years. In fact, an analysis of the books stocked in bookstores shows that the ratio of titles in the classic literature category——which includes books with high literary value by such authors as Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and Faulkner——to titles in the genre category has decreased over the same period. In addition, average sales per title in the genre category have increased greatly over the last five years. Critics fear that if current trends continue, genre books will dominate the market for fiction books, signaling a lamentable decrease in the quality of literature to which the average reader is exposed.

Which of the following pieces of information would be most useful in evaluating the validity of the critics claim about genre books potential domination of the market for fiction books?


1. the likelihood that current trends in the sales of books in the genre and classic literature categories continue ( critics already see this trend. doesnt help) so out


2. the amounts of sales, in dollars, for books in the genre and classic literature categories over the last five years ( in the arument it is given information about demand) so this info doesnt help.


3. a comparison of sales revenues for nonfiction books and genre books over the last five years (we are not concerned with comparison of revenue) out of scope.


4. sales revenues over the last five years both for genre books and for fiction books other than those in the genre or classic literature categories ( this one i liked. it considers other other than those in the genre or classic literature categories thus critics can evaluate future trends.

5. a numerical estimate of the literary value contained in each of several representative titles of the genre book category ( again not concerned with numerical estimate) out of scope.

So by POE chose D

1. the likelihood that current trends in the sales of books in the genre and classic literature categories continue
Ye this is highly likelyy would help in solving the paradox however there is a possiblity this might be a trap answer

2. the amounts of sales, in dollars, for books in the genre and classic literature categories over the last five years
Classic literature is not the concern fiction and the geners is the concern


3. a comparison of sales revenues for nonfiction books and genre books over the last five years
here again sales revenue was never the question in non fiction the battle was fought between high literature merit and love fiction


4. sales revenues over the last five years both for genre books and for fiction books other than those in the genre or classic literature categories
Yes this is a valid question it could be that the quality is high a single copy can take on maybe twice , thrice quadraple of of one quantity of love genere


5. a numerical estimate of the literary value contained in each of several representative titles of the genre book category
I haven't seen a beeter out of context sentence which makes the context so vague
Hence IMO D

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.