The Orange corporation is conducting market research in preparation fo

Can someone comment on my train of thought that made me exclude A and arrive at D as the correct answer.

The argument states that 25% of group A (docs) + group B (>$250k) are expected to account for the sales. It does not state any where how many of individual groups. So, even if the statement A is true, the remaining 20% can be provided by the group B guys(there is no hint in the argument why it can't be so).

Is this a correct approach ? I don't want to arrive at a correct answer with wrong logic.

Thanks.

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Read the conclusion properly. It states that --

"Orange projects that IF one-fourth of people in these markets buy the eSlate, Orange will sell over 5 million units of the eSlate."

What people said in the surveys is irrelevant to the argument at hand. We are ONLY concerned about one scenario -- WHEN 1/4TH of people in these markets buy the e-Slate -- and the conclusion derived when this is ASSUMED to be true.

This is what the argument says --

No. of people with income > 250,000$ + No. of people who are medical professionals = 20 million.
If 25% of these people purchase the item, Orange will sell over 5 million units.

Option E tries to point a flaw in the reasoning above.
Let us assume that each of these groups have 10 million people. But what if 5 million people both earn >250,000$ and are also medical professionals.

Then, the total number of people will be 15 million people (even though the sum of two terms will be 20 million people).
Then, approximate number of units sold = 15 million * 0.25 = 3.75 million. Destroys the argument.

HINT: An argument asking you to weaken a conclusion is generally asking you to identify the assumptions and then select an answer that says that one of those assumptions is not true.

In order to do this, you must diagram the argument, and be able to identify the conclusion you are trying to weaken.

The first sentence of the argument is just giving background information and doesn't seem to really be part of the argument. The premises in the argument seem to go as follows (use “MPs” for “medical professionals” and “250Ks” for “people making more than $250,000 a year”):

eSlate likely buyers: MPs and 250KsMPs + 250Ks = over 20 million
IF 1/4 of those buy the eSlate, THEN over 5 million will buy

Is there a problem with this logic?

Keep in mind that the argument DOES NOT say that one-fourth of the target market WILL buy the eSlate. It only says that IF they did buy it, more than 5 million sales will result.

Therefore, some of the WRONG answers are likely to try to prove that one-fourth of the target market will not buy the eSlate. You don't care! The argument will NOT be weakened by that assertion. The “if” in the argument is very important! (For instance, the argument, “IF America became a monarchy, it would be likely to allow female monarchs” is not weakened by the assertion that America is very unlikely to become a monarchy.)

Examine the premises of this argument as a little math problem. Two groups add up to over 20 million people. If one-fourth of the people in those groups buy a product, over 5 million products will be sold. What's wrong with that?

Lovely question. If people get stuck, it is between options A and D. Option A if true, can still have 5mil+ sales because question does not give split up of people that are Med and "Income over 250000".

D conclusively weakens the argument.

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