Among the more effective kinds of publicity that publishers can get for a new book is to have excerpts of it published in a high-circulation magazine soon before the book is published. The benefits of such excerption include not only a sure increase in sales but also a fee paid by the magazine to the book’s publisher. Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the information above? (A) The number of people for whom seeing an excerpt of a book in a magazine provides an adequate substitute for reading the whole book is smaller than the number for whom the excerpt stimulates a desire to read the book. (B) Because the financial advantage of excerpting a new book in a magazine usually accrues to the book’s publisher, magazine editors are unwilling to publish excerpts from new books. (C) In calculating the total number of copies that a book has sold, publishers include sales of copies of magazines that featured an excerpt of the book. (D) The effectiveness of having excerpts of a book published in a magazine, measured in terms of increased sales of a book, is proportional to the circulation of the magazine in which the excerpts are published. (E) Books that are suitable for excerpting in high-circulation magazines sell more copies than books that are not suitable for excerpting.

Hi kabirgandhi , Let me help. Excerption can surely increase sales (we are talking about additional sales) only if it motivates more people to buy the book than it demotivates to not buy the book. Let's say 100 people would have bought the book if its excerpts were not published. As per the passage, excerption will increase the sales to let's say 102. Is that possible if it demotivated 8 people (so 100-8) and motivated just 2 people (100-8+2)? Hope that helps. Good luck!

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Among the more effective kinds of publicity that publishers can get

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AjiteshArun

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19 May 2024, 23:24

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Contropositive

Although it is clear that except (A) none of the otpions come close to the argument, but say

1. People who are gonna buy the book anyway = 100
2. People getting dissuaded by magazine = 100
3. People who are gonna buy after reading the mag = 1
4. Total sale = 101

If above is true why does A say: The number of people for whom seeing an excerpt of a book in a magazine provides an adequate substitute for reading the whole book is smaller than the number for whom the excerpt stimulates a desire to read the book?

Hi Contropositive,

1. Let's say that 200 magazine readers have preordered or plan to buy the book. This is before the excerpt is published, so 200 is the baseline.

2. Once the excerpt is published, X readers (of the 200) cancel their preorders or decide not to buy the book (the excerpt is an adequate substitute for the book). Y readers decide to buy the book (the excerpt stimulates a desire to read the book).

Since the marketing strategy leads to "a sure increase in sales", we expect Y > X (if X > Y, the strategy wouldn't lead to an increase in sales).

In your example, we expected 200 people to buy the book, but total sales were only 101. That is, the marketing strategy delivered a -99.

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09 Sep 2024, 03:02

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GMATNinja KarishmaB AjiteshArun

case 1
For A to be true, let say out of 15 people, excerpt convinced 10 people to buy (more people to buy) > 5 People not buy
Net positive=5, hence increase in sales and excerpt has a benefit

case 2 - Out of 15 people
10 people are not buying > 5 people are buying, the excerpt has a negative impact overall even though there is still 5 increase in sale.
So the negative impact overall goes against the info given in the passage that having excerpt has 2 benefits.

Do you think my reasoning is correct to eliminate case 2?

Thank you for your help!

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09 Sep 2024, 20:46

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Sneha2021

Hi Sneha2021,

Your reasoning is correct, but it'd be better to focus more on the "a sure increase in sales" bit than on the fact that there are two benefits.

As you pointed out, if 5 people decide to buy but 10 people decide not to buy, the net impact is (-5), which isn't consistent with "a sure increase in sales". And that's what option A tells us: that the {~buy} number ("stimulates a desire to read the book") will be greater than the {~not buy} number ("seeing an excerpt... provides an adequate substitute for reading the whole book").

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12 Oct 2024, 07:21

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Since we are talking about high circulation magazines, the total number of readers of such magazines is large.
option says no of people reading only excerpts as a substitute to the entire book is smaller than the no of people who would read entire book. we don't know relative numbers but still we can conclude that they are not low and 1st type of people are even lower so option A helps could be conclude from the passage

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19 Nov 2024, 22:35

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The correct answer is (A). Let me explain why (A) is better supported than (D) by the information given in the passage.

Revisiting the Passage:

The passage states:

Publishing an excerpt of a book in a high-circulation magazine can increase sales.
1. It also generates a fee from the magazine to the publisher.
2. The key idea is that publishing excerpts stimulates demand for the book by increasing readers' interest.

Evaluating Option (A):

A. The number of people for whom seeing an excerpt of a book in a magazine provides an adequate substitute for reading the whole book is smaller than the number for whom the excerpt stimulates a desire to read the book.

This option addresses why excerpts increase sales.
If excerpts inspired most readers to feel satisfied with just the excerpt (rather than buy the book), sales wouldn't increase. But if excerpts make more readers want the full book, sales will rise—supporting the passage's claim that excerpts boost sales.
This aligns directly with the idea in the passage.
Example for A:
A magazine publishes an excerpt of a novel.

5,000 readers enjoy the excerpt.
4,000 readers want to buy the full novel (stimulated desire).
Only 1,000 readers feel satisfied with just the excerpt.
Thus, most readers were motivated to purchase the book after reading the excerpt.

Evaluating Option (D):
D. The effectiveness of having excerpts of a book published in a magazine, measured in terms of increased sales of a book, is proportional to the circulation of the magazine in which the excerpts are published.

This option introduces a proportional relationship between the magazine's circulation and the book's sales.
While it's logical that a high-circulation magazine will reach more people (and thus may increase sales), the passage does not explicitly say or imply that the relationship is proportional.
For instance, the passage does not exclude the possibility that smaller magazines could also generate significant interest if they have a highly engaged audience.
Why D is weaker:
The passage emphasizes the effectiveness of publishing excerpts but doesn't specifically establish that it is directly tied to circulation size. This is an assumption not clearly supported by the passage.

Conclusion:

Option (A) is correct because it directly explains why publishing excerpts leads to increased book sales.
Option (D), while plausible, goes beyond what the passage explicitly supports and makes an unproven assumption about proportionality.

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13 Oct 2025, 10:44

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Hello quick question on explanation for A)

Even if number of people who don't buy book after reading excerpt > number of people who buy the book, sales can still go up, correct?

Let's say 10 people are reading the excerpt in the magazine, and 2 people buy the book, whereas for 8, the excerpt makes them not want to buy/replaces the book. Sales would still go up by 2.

Anyone? GMATNinja MartyMurray, @KarsihmaB

nightblade354

Hi pikolo2510,

Let's analyze A and D!

Among the more effective kinds of publicity that publishers can get for a new book is to have excerpts of it published in a high-circulation magazine soon before the book is published. The benefits of such excerption include not only a sure increase in sales but also a fee paid by the magazine to the book's publisher.

Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the information above?
-- This is an inference question, meaning the answer HAS to be true.

A) The number of people for whom seeing an excerpt of a book in a magazine provides an adequate substitute for reading the whole book is smaller than the number for whom the excerpt stimulates a desire to read the book. -- More people who see the magazine excerpt buy the book than those who don't, therefore sales go up.

D) The effectiveness of having excerpts of a book published in a magazine, measured in terms of increased sales of a book, is proportional to the circulation of the magazine in which the excerpts are published. -- Your line of thinking is correct, but with a little flaw. This answer talks about proportions. The answer is saying that if the magazine is widely circulated, more will buy the book. If the magazine is less circulated, less will buy the book. The issue,
here, though it may make sense in reality, is that the we cannot say for 100% certainty whether this is correct or not, as the question never compares the rate of distribution to the success of sales. This can't be proven, so it cannot be an inference. If this were an assumption question, this might be a nice choice.

Does this help?

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Hi kabirgandhi,

Let me help.

Excerption can surely increase sales (we are talking about additional sales) only if it motivates more people to buy the book than it demotivates to not buy the book.

Let's say 100 people would have bought the book if its excerpts were not published.
As per the passage, excerption will increase the sales to let's say 102.
Is that possible if it demotivated 8 people (so 100-8) and motivated just 2 people (100-8+2)?

Hope that helps.

Good luck!

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14 Oct 2025, 02:07

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GMATQuizMaster

Hi kabirgandhi,

Let me help.

Excerption can surely increase sales (we are talking about additional sales) only if it motivates more people to buy the book than it demotivates to not buy the book.

Let's say 100 people would have bought the book if its excerpts were not published.
As per the passage, excerption will increase the sales to let's say 102.
Is that possible if it demotivated 8 people (so 100-8) and motivated just 2 people (100-8+2)?

Hope that helps.

Good luck!

Hello, thank you for the reply

To get to the reasoning that you have shared, would we have to assume that the except is reaching only those who would have bought the book anyway?

If these 10 people would not have necessarily bought the book, then even if A) were true, we would get 2 additional people who would've bought the book, over and above.

Adding on to this - I wanted to ask you a question about these types of problems.

When the stem says: Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the passage?

Is that the same as: which of the following must be true, given the information above?

The latter is clearly and inference question, whereas I have always struggled to identify whether the former should be treated the same way - do we have to look for something that absolutely MUST be true? Or just a logical conclusion following from the passage?

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Thanks for the follow up. Let me explain:

As per the passage, the excerpts can reach anyone - so people who would have would otherwise as well as people who would not have bought otherwise are included. So, let's understand the impact on each category.

Category 1- People who would have bought the books if excerpts were not published (100 in previous example):

Some of them will not be affected, they will still buy the book - No impact.
Some of them will not purchase the book (8 in the previous example) - Reduces sale
So, no additional sales because of excerpts in this category- net effect is reduction in sales.

Category 2- People who would not have bought the books if excerpts were not published (let's say 50- these are completely different from 100 above):

Some of them will not be affected, they will still not buy the book - No impact.
Some of them will be motivated to purchase the book (2 in the previous example) - Increases sale
Net effect is increase in sales.

Overall impact = Net increase - Net reduction

Net sales will increase only if #people who got motivated to buy the book is more than the #people who get demotivated to buy the book.

There is a slight jump here (an assumption that all people have been reached - which get covered by "high circulation" to an extent, but not completely). Usually, you will not find such jumps.

Question Type - The correct answer to such questions will be a correct Inference.

kabirgandhi

Hello, thank you for the reply

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How can it be concluded -> More people who see the magazine excerpt buy the book than those who don't buy even if they read the excerpt.
The passage only says the sales goes up. Sale can also go up if less people who read the excerpt from the magazine buys. Since there are other sources though book also gets publicity

Suppose base line is people who know about the book from knowing though every other source buys x book
Now from this magazine lets suppose only 10 books are sold after reading the excerpt then this also makes = sales go up

Not sure with that reasoning how sure the sales goes up conclusion is true ?

nightblade354