Official Explanation:Digittel is marketing a new home phone system that works in conjunction with any cell phone now being sold. However, people who already have home phones will need to keep those phones -- as well as the Digittel phones -- in operation if they want to keep their existing home phone numbers after adding the new system.
Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest reason for believing that the Digittel system will be a very popular purchase even though people will have to maintain their old home phones to keep their existing phone number? (A) Very few people in the market that Digittel wants to serve currently have home phone systems.(B) The Digittel home phone system uses a technology that allows for substantially better reception than that of their previous home phone system.(C) The price of a Digittel home phone system is comparable to the cost of other existing home phone systems.(D) Digittel sells cell phones that can be connected only to their own home phone system, not any other home phone system.(E) Most people who live in the region that Digittel wants to serve would like to keep their existing home phone numbers.Question Type: Resolve the Paradox
Boil It Down: Digittel is a home phone system that works with your cell phone, yet it won’t work with an existing home phone line.
Goal: Find the most logical reason why people will still buy Digittel, even if they have to keep two home phone lines. Analysis:This question asks you to explain an apparent paradox. (This is not a logical argument, so we can’t analyze it for premises and a conclusion. )
Why would the Digittel system be so successful, as it says in the question, if people who already have home phones need to also keep their old systems running if they want to keep their numbers? This can be explained if the relative inconvenience of having to keep an existing phone system will not adversely affect many people. This is what choice A says. If a small percentage of people will opt not to get a Digittel system because of this inconvenience, this supports the idea that the Digittel system will still be a success.
(A) This is the correct choice.
(B) The comparison between the new Digittel home system and the old one does not go far enough to establish that the new one will be successful. Was the last one successful? We don’t know.
(C) This does not address the fact that some people would have to keep their existing system. How successful are the other existing home phone systems? How big a factor is price when people decide which to purchase or whether to purchase? We don’t know.
(D) This does not give a reason why people will buy the Digittel home system. We don't know how many people have or would buy Digittel’s cell phones.
(E) This tells us that people want to keep their home phone numbers, but not whether they want the inconvenience of having two systems, as would be required if they bought the Digittel system.
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