An eyeglass manufacturer tried to boost sales for the summer

GMATNinja
You have mentioned "So even though orders were unusually low last year summer". However, I am not able to deduce this specific information from the argument. According to me, if we take option C as true, it would talk about only fall quarter. So, we dont know whether orders were lw for summer quarter. please explain.

Experts mikemcgarry GMATNinja VeritasPrepKarishma egmat Please guide for this question.......I marked Option B as increased newspaper and advertising costs shall have a direct impact on net profit which is not considered in the argument.

If the closing stock for summer quarter will become the opening stock for fall quarter then will the distributors stock more if they are already overstocked?.

Since it is mentioned in the question stem that "Many distributors qualified for this discount.", means many distributors might not avail the discount as they are already over stocked.

Option E is the correct choice!! "The distributors' ordering more goods in the summer quarter left them overstocked for the fall quarter".

GMATNinja , @VeritasPrepKarishma , egmat - Request your help in understanding why the option E is better than option B in this question.

My thinking
B- If the manufacturer had put inputs other than the discounts then they might have had an impact on sales & hence we cannot assume that the same similar growth in sale will happen in fall quarter- given that it is specified that manufacturer plans to repeat the same discount but is not mentioned that other inputs will also be repeated
E- The distributors are overstocked for fall, but might choose to be even more overstocked. It might not necessarily result in failure of the plan.

Your help in understanding will be much appreciated.

A) In general, a distributor's orders for the summer quarter are no higher than those for the spring quarter.
is not indicating any hint that will lead to paradox

(B) Along with offering special discounts to qualifying distributors, the manufacturer increased newspaper and radio advertising in those distributors' sales areas.
it means just probability of high sales is very high. but doesnot generate any doubt

(C) The distributors most likely to qualify for the manufacturer's special discount are those whose orders were unusually low a year earlier.
this is basically the same point mentioned in the passage. hence nothing imp

(D) The distributors who qualified for the manufacturer's special discount were free to decide how much of that discount to pass on to their own customers.
it doesnot relate to profit of manufacturer. hence not a relevant

(E) The distributors' ordering more goods in the summer quarter left them overstocked for the fall quarter.
if overstocked, there is a high chance that the price will fall. this will affect the net profit even if sales increases. hence
giving discount makes no sense to manufacturers!!

GMATNinja

I did not think about this way. I thought "sales" is what customers buy (i.e. not what manufacturer sells to the distributors).
Hence, I eliminated E because customers will buy glasses in the fall, just like they bought glasses in summer (considering that distributors have enough glasses to sell. It does not matter whether glasses are overstocked or not. As long as distributors have glasses, they will sell them).

I also fell for B. I thought, advertisement was a factor that boosted the sales.
And, B also says that the manufacturer increased advertising (past tense), so I thought the manufacturer will not do advertisement in the fall, therefore the sales will not boost (I know that we can not know if the manufacturer will do advertisement in the fall or not. But this is a strengthen/weaken question. We do not look for an answer choice that is 100% certain, instead, we look for an answer choice that is likely to affect the argument. And that likelihood is "If the manufacturer will not do advertisement in the fall".

Any opinions?

manufacture concludes that fall quarter will have the same results as summer quarter.

Taken out of context, the word "sales" could refer to either merchandise sold to a distributor, or merchandise sold by a distributor to a customer. So what is the intended meaning in this passage?


Here, the manufacturer is trying to boost its own sales. Who is the manufacturer selling things to? To its distributors -- who place orders with the manufacturer. So, the word "sales" must refer to glasses sold by the manufacturer to the distributor. The words "sales" and "orders" refer to the same exact thing in this passage.

Regarding answer choice (B): be careful about adding your own interpretations to answer choices. Another key aspect of critical reasoning is to always understand the answer choices in their exact words.

With that in mind, let's take a look at (B):


We know for certain that the manufacturer "increased newspaper and radio advertising" the previous summer, since this was done along with the discounts. As for this coming summer, based on their exact words, we have to conclude that we simply don't know if they'll advertise or not. It could be relevant to the question, but after reading answer choice (B), we simply don't have enough information.

I hope that helps!

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