A famous singer recently won a lawsuit against an advertising firm for

For the benefit of the forum readers, I guess it will be better that we put in our explanation for our answer choice.

Negate (E) The advertising industry will NOT use well-known renditions of songs in commercials.

This will weaken the conclusion "advertising costs will rise, since famous singers’ services cost more than those of their imitators". Since well-known renditions of songs are not used in commercials, the advertising cost will NOT rise.

Answer is E.

IMO -E.
Reasons:
Premise1: Famous Singer won lawsuit because Advertising firm used Imitation singer
Premise2: Famous Singers service costs more than Imitation Singers service
Premise3: Advertising Firms will stop using Imitation Singer
Conclusion: Advertising costs will go up.

The above conclusion can be derived only if Advertising firms will use the well-know songs renditions which are sung by famous/Imitation singers. So that is the assumption... and Hence E

Conclusion: Advertising costs will rise
why? Because famous singers' services cost more than those of their imitators.
There itself is a gap in the argument.The author assumes that if the advertisers will stop using imitators, then they will be using the services of famous singers(Costlier) instead of some other cheaper alternative. So, our assumption will be along those lines.


It does not matter if most people cannot differentiate. If atleast one person differentiates, then there is probability of lawsuit. In addition, this option is not talking about cost implications.


The effectiveness of famous singers/Imitators is out of scope.It is the cost implication of these singers that matters.


The availability is out of scope. Even if they are available, there is no information provided to conclude that the advertisers will use these original versions.


Imitation of physical mannerisms of famous singers is out of scope.


This matches with our prethinking. Instead of going for some other alternative, Advertisers will use well-known renditions of songs in commercials.

Certainly E, for the reasons given above. The conclusion is that 'advertising costs will rise' because advertisers will pay more for songs, and if advertisers stop using songs altogether, the argument falls apart.

Curious where the question is from - surely it's based on Tom Waits' real life lawsuit against Frito-Lay?

You can evaluate (E) just by unpacking the argument itself.

The conclusion is that advertising costs will rise. Here's how the author reaches that conclusion:

• Ad firms will stop using imitators to evoke famous singers' well-known renditions of songs in commercials.
• Famous singers' services cost more than those of their imitators.
• Therefore, advertising costs will rise.

The unstated piece of this argument is that ad firms will go ahead and hire famous singers to sing their own well-known renditions:

• Ad firms will stop using imitators to evoke famous singers' well-known renditions of songs in commercials.
• Famous singers' services cost more than those of their imitators.
• Ad firms will replace imitators with the more costly famous singers they were imitating in the first place.
• Therefore, advertising costs will rise.

If ad firms take the highlighted action, then certainly we can expect advertising costs to rise. But if ad firms DON'T take that action (i.e., if they do literally anything else with their budgets), then we can't accept the conclusion so easily. After all, we only know the relative difference in cost between famous singers and their imitators. We don't know the cost of any other type of advertising expense.

That's why this assumption is necessary for the conclusion to be logically valid.

Choice (E) recognizes that necessity, and lines up with our reasoning:


That's why it's the correct answer choice.

I hope this helps!

I was confused b/w B and E but finally gave in to E. I used negate method. Below is my explanation:
(A) Most people are unable to distinguish a famous singer’s rendition of a song from a good imitator’s rendition of the same song. --> This is not related to the conclusion. (B) Commercials using famous singers are usually more effective than commercials using imitators of famous singers. - Logiscally this assumption makes sense but it is not related to the conclusion of the passage. (C) The original versions of some well-known songs are unavailable for use in commercials. Not related or Out of scope(D) Advertising firms will continue to use imitators to mimic the physical mannerisms of famous singers. It actually breaks the conclusion(E) The advertising industry will use well-known renditions of songs in commercials. if this is not ture the argument itself is broken hence this is the answer

Though my doubt might be silly, I want to ask what is wrong with (C).

(C) The original versions of some well-known songs are unavailable for use in commercials.

OE:
C The lack of availability of some songs is not relevant to the rise in advertising costs.The same songs would not have been available even when production costs were lower

So, it is the above explanation which is 100% correct or it is the difference between rendition and song that plays some role.

Further to it,

I could say that if original versions of some well-known songs are available for use then advertising costs won't increase.

So what is the issue with the above.

(1). The use of 'some' and not 'all'.
(2). Usage of term 'song' and not 'rendition'.
(3). The one stated in OE as if this would have been the case then there was no logic of imitating the original artists, we could have used the available songs.

So all are the issues or only the one stated in OE?

Rgds,
TGC!

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I would like to add to Xylan 's explanation here.

Taking Option C as is seems as a mild strengthener. Because "SOME SONGS" are unavailable for the commercials, they might need to use the path of rendition by famous singers, since they can't use imitators.

Option C does help me increase my belief in conclusion and that is why we have confusion. But when we negate this option then it says " all original songs are available for commercials".

But to qualify option C as assumption, we need an explicit mention of the statement that the advertisers WILL USE or MAY USE original songs as well. Since, this information is unknown to us, we can say that the negation does not break down the conclusion and hence is a strengthener but not an assumption.

A - how does this relate to the increase in advertising costs? if people are able to distinguish, then what will they do? Will they complain to the company that what you are doing is not good. The lawsuit was filed by a famous singer and not a viewer. eliminated.
B - effectiveness of advertisements is not talked about in the argument. eliminated.
C - the original versions of SOME songs are not available. how much is SOME? maybe 2 songs are not available. the advertising agency might use some other song. it is not mentioned in the argument that the agency needs to use some particular song. eliminated.
D - if the advertisers will continue to use the imitators to mimic the physical mannerisms. the argument does not talk about the body language of the famous singers. it talks about using the song of a famous singer sung by some imitator. eliminated.

E - the conclusion says that the advertising costs will rise. Why will they rise? If they stop using renditions of the songs, the costs might stay stable or even decrease. So the argument needs this assumption that they will keep using renditions of the songs. after the lawsuit, they will be forced to use the famous singer's voice which will cost more hence the rise in services. Perfect answer.

No, we cannot say that. "If option (E) were not there, would (D) be correct" is not how CR works, at least not the official questions.

A singer sued an advertising company for using an imitator for his/her famous song and won.
Now advertising companies will not use imitators (else they will get sued)
Singers charge more than imitators.

Conclusion: Advertising costs will rise.
To conclude that advertising cost will rise, we need to assume that the advertisers will use famous songs (with their original singers). What if advertisers stop using famous songs? Then they will not have to pay a lot of money to the famous singers of those songs.

Hence, (E) is our assumption.

What is an assumption?

(A) Most people are unable to distinguish a famous singer rendition of a song from a good imitator's rendition of the same song.

Irrelevant to whether advertising costs will rise.

(B) Commercials using famous singers are usually more effective than commercials using imitators of famous singers.

Irrelevant to whether advertising costs will rise. This has impact on revenue generated through advertising but we are not discussing that at all. We are only talking about cost of advertising.

(C) The original versions of some well-known songs are unavailable for use in commercials.

Irrelevant.

(D) Advertising firms will continue to use imitators to mimic the physical mannerisms of famous singers.

We are told that advertising firms will not use imitators in commercials now.

Answer (E)

We're looking for something that MUST be true in order to conclude that "advertising costs will rise." To reach this conclusion, the author argues that "famous singers' services cost more than those of their imitators," so if you prevent imitators from performing, then advertisers will have to pay more to use the services of the famous singers.

So, does (C) HAVE to be true in order for the conclusion to hold? Take a look:

Hmm, there are a couple of issues here. First, it's unclear what "original versions of some well-known songs" really means -- are these the renditions by the famous people, or not? There's simply not enough information.

Second, does the argument REQUIRE it to be true that certain songs are unavailable? Not at all. Maybe some well-known songs are unavailable -- advertisers will still have to pay a premium for famous renditions of other songs. Or maybe every single song IS available -- guess what, advertisers will still have to pay more for famous renditions of those songs.

Because the argument can hold whether the information in (C) is true or not, (C) is not an assumption on which the argument is based.

Eliminate (C).

I hope that helps!

If we consider all the implications of (A), we could see it as a strengthener since it implies that advertisers have been able to get the value of a famous singer's rendition of a song without paying famous singer rates and now will no longer be able to do so. The implications of those facts are that advertisers have lost a relatively low-cost option for creating effective commercials and that therefore advertising costs may rise.

That story is a little more extended than the support we would see for a correct answer to a GMAT CR question, but still, we could decide that choice (A) is a strengthener for that reason.

At the same time, this question is not a Strengthen question. It's an Assumption question. So, even if we consider (A) a strengthener, it's still not the correct answer since it's not an assumption upon which the conclusion is based.

After all, it's not necessary to assume that most people are completely "unable to distinguish a famous singer rendition of a song from a good imitator's rendition of the same song" as (A) says, to conclude that advertising costs will increase if advertisers are no longer able to use imitators to evoke famous singer renditions of songs. After all, even if people can tell the difference, the costs could increase if advertisers can no longer use imitated renditions to evoke the original renditions and thus capture the attention of the audience at a relatively low cost.

Thanks for the reply! This definitely clears it up for me

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A famous singer recently won a lawsuit against an advertising firm for using another singer in a commercial to evoke the famous singer's well-known rendition of a certain song. As a result of the lawsuit, advertising firms will stop using imitators in commercials. Therefore, advertising costs will rise, since famous singers' services cost more than those of their imitators.
The conclusion above is based on which of the following assumptions?
(A) Most people are unable to distinguish a famous singer's rendition of a song from a good imitator's rendition of the same song.
(B) Commercials using famous singers are usually more effective than commercials using imitators of famous singers.
(C) The original versions of some well-known songs are unavailable for use in commercials.
(D) Advertising firms will continue to use imitators to mimic the physical mannerisms of famous singers.
(E) The advertising industry will use well-known renditions of songs in commercials.

This one is the assumption question. Normally, when we try to solve any assumption question, then it comes some possible challenges in our head. does the possible challenge weaken the argument?
does the below weaken the argument?
>>The industry will use something different criteria for advertising, which costs the low cost than the famous singer.
>>There are some workers (they are paid only as a worker not for singing song) in this industry who sings exactly like the famous singer and they’ll be used for advertisement.
Thanks...

Hi can anyone explain why option C is a wrong choice? i was confused between C &E , and ended up choosing C

Can't understand why E is the answer. Please help GMATNinja