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Director
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Surveys show that every year only 10 percent of cigarette [#permalink]
 05 Apr 2006, 05:29
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Surveys show that every year only 10 percent of cigarette smokers switch brands. Yet the manufacturers have been spending an amount equal to 10 percent of their gross receipts on cigarette promotion in magazines. It follows from these figures that inducing cigarette smokers to switch brands did not pay, and that cigarette companies would have been no worse off economically if they had dropped their advertising.
Of the following, the best criticism of the conclusion that inducing cigarette smokers to switch brands did not pay is that the conclusion is based on
(A) computing advertising costs as a percentage of gross receipts, not of overall costs
(B) past patterns of smoking and may not carry over to the future
(C) the assumption that each smoker is loyal to a single brand of cigarettes at any one time
(D) the assumption that each manufacturer produces only one brand of cigarettes
(E) figures for the cigarette industry as a whole and may not hold for a particular company
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Director
Joined: 13 Nov 2003
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Not very certain but think that B) and C) look most tempting.
Choose C)
The author assumes that consumers smoke only one brand of cigarettes at any moment, that is why advertising did not pay
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VP
Joined: 21 Mar 2006
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Its definitely not B
We are suppossed to find a flaw in the conclusion.
Conclusion is:
It follows from these figures that inducing cigarette smokers to switch brands did not pay, and that cigarette companies would have been no worse off economically if they had dropped their advertising.
It speaks about the past while B considers the future. So out of scope.
Regarding C, the author does NOT assume that smokers are loyal to just one brand. The passage says 'Surveys show that every year only 10 percent of cigarette smokers switch brands.' This does not necessarily mean that each smoker smokes only one brand.
I'm going with E.
A pernny for any of your thoughts! I'm pretty bad at CR's. So an explanation by any of you would be greatly appreciated!!
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Director
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any more takers for this one ??
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VP
Joined: 21 Mar 2006
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whats the OA?
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Senior Manager
Joined: 07 Mar 2006
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I would go for B because the conclusion was that the advertising did not pay off.
But the criticism to this is that the advertisement atleast helped retain old customers.How could the author assume that the habits won't change over time.
Doesn't this sound convincing??
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Intern
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I'll go with C
The author is assuming 90% of smokers are sticking to a particular brand. If not, relative incrase or decrese of purchase of different brand of cigaretters is a result of inducing cigarette smokers to switch brands .
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Manager
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My choice is C.
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Director
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
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The OA is E - figures for the cigarette industry as a whole and may not hold for a particular company
The passage says that a advertising doesnt affect sales much as company spends 10% on advertising and only 10% of people switch brands. But maybe all people who switched brands moved to company XYZ because of their advertisements. So even though for all other companies, the ads didnt help very much, for company XYZ, they surely did.
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