Accountant: This company simply cannot afford to hire a new

­
Conclusion- This company simply cannot afford to hire a new salesperson.
Pre-thinkng- Suppose additional salespeople are needed inorder to meet demands and the additional revenue is more than enough to recover the costs.

Option A- As per passage we are given that the monthly expense per sales person will rise 10%. However, we are not given the composition of the 10% increase. The 4 heads could vary monthly.
Option B- Same as A, we are unsure of the monthly composition.
Option C- Irrelevant.
Option D- In line with our pre-thinking
Option E- Strengthens the conclusion. This option provides a stronger reason to believe in the conclusion.­

­My Process of Elimination -

A -It is mentioned in the question that total cost is a contribution of multiple factors .Thus by reducing cost of only 1 head wont be a reason to be sure that the company will be able to bare the cost of a new salesman .
B- same as option A 
C- Heard mentality but also the issue for the company in question is the cost incurred and this does not address it .Although the competitor is hiring salesman does not ensure that the company in question will be able to afford it .
D- Answer .Because of the demand for the company’s products maybe the salesman can sell it more and geenrate more revenue for the company and hence they can afford the cost of hiring him/her .
E - It strengthens the argument by agreeing that 'The company will not be able to reduce its existing expenses '

­

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

In this Weaken question, the accountant argues that "we cannot afford to hire a new salesperson," and then lists as premises the various costs that would add up to a 10% cost increase for the company. What is the gap in logic? Costs are only one part of the profit equation: there's also revenue. And the argument doesn't talk at all about the revenue that this new salesperson could bring in. You should seize on that gap and scan the argument for reasons that revenues would increase more than the costs would.

Choice (D) offers exactly that: if a new salesperson would bring in much more than it costs to employ her, the conclusion crumbles. (D) is correct.

Among the other choices:

(A) and (B) each only address one of the many costs of employing the new salesperson, so you're still stuck with the negative premise that monthly costs will be up by 10%. Remember: you cannot argue with the premises, only with the validity of the conclusion.

(C) misses the scope of the argument, which is only about whether the company can afford this new salesperson. Whether or not other companies can afford more employees doesn't factor in to this particular analysis of one company's financial situation.

And (E) actually strengthens the argument, if anything, demonstrating that the 10% incremental cost is unlikely to be mitigated by other savings.­