Following several years of declining advertising sales, the Greenvile

It's true that the question is not explicit about when the reorganization happened. But before we discuss the timeline, let's consider the question from another angle.

Ignoring (B) for a moment, we can convincingly reject all the other answers -- check out these posts of ours for why (A), (C) and (D) are wrong, and this one by VeritasKarishma for why (E) is wrong. Since (B) is the only one that could plausibly shed light on the relevant claim, it has to be the correct answer.

Considering (B) from another angle -- notice that (B) isn't addressing whether the circulation increase happened exactly two years ago. Rather, it's addressing whether the circulation is higher now than it was two years ago (i.e. if an increase happened "in the last two years"). Based on the wording of the question, it's most reasonable to assume that the reorganization took place somewhat recently. So if the circulation increased at some point in the last two years, this may have caused the increased revenue.

You could probably imagine a timeline where (B) doesn't prove that the increase in revenue was due to increased circulation. But that takes a lot more "what if's" than eliminating all the other answer choices. Lastly, keep in mind we're not looking for something that proves the increased revenue was due to the reorganization. Rather, we're asked to identify which of the given answers would be most helpful in assessing that claim.

I hope that helps!

On Evaluate questions, we need to find an answer choice which either strongly supports the stated assumption behind reaching the conclusion or suggests an alternative approach that might have resulted in the conclusion due to which the stated assumption falls flat.

So here we are trying the assess the conclusion that reorganization of the sales force from initially being geographically focused to becoming industry centric has resulted in increased advertising sales.

So any answer choice which either strengthens or completely weakens our conclusion is the solution.

(A) What proportion of the total revenue of the Greenville Times is generated by advertising sales?

Here we are only taking about advertising sales so we do not need to compare it with revenue contributed from any other resource.

(B) Has the circulation of the Greenville Times increased substantially in the last two years?

CORRECT: If circulation of Greenville Times has increased over the past two years it also means more businesses would like to advertise during this period due to higher reach

(C) Among all the types of industry and retailing that use the Greenville Times as an advertising vehicle, which type accounts for the largest proportion of the newspaper’s advertising sales?

We are interested in knowing how reorganization of the advertising force resulted in increased advertising revenues and not in which industry/account contributed to maximum revenue.

(D) Do any clients of the sales representatives of the Greenville Times have a standing order with the Times for a fixed amount of advertising per month?

If any clients of the sales representatives of the Greenville Times has a standing order with the Times for a fixed amount of advertising per month then it is unaffected by reorganization of the advertising force.

(E) Among the advertisers in the Greenville Times, are there more types of retail business or more types of industrial business?

Which type of business is contributing to higher revenues has no role to play in the reorganization of the advertising force.

Can anyone tell, how can I suppose to know that the circulation is related to the increase in ad revenue? The possibility that the newspaper can charge more for more circulation never crosses my mind, so I eliminated this choice first as I thought it was irrelevant.

Hello experts, I chose B, but was still a little bit suspicious about my answer due to "last two years". Do we really have to be particular about such periods? Especially it says last two years in the answer choice, however, the question is talking about "following several years of decline". Why exactly two years?

The question is not ideally written. That "the last two years" part is not clearly connected to what the passage says.

Since (B) presents a possible alternative cause, it does bring up something that would be helpful to find out in assessing whether the improvement in advertising sales can properly be attributed to the reorganization.

However, the "two years" part doesn't fully make sense.

In some cases, the presence of a time period in a choice could make the choice incorrect. In this case, since "the last two years" is within the time period in question, the choice works even though it's not ideal.

KarishmaB GMATNinja GMATGuruNY MartyTargetTestPrep

I found "the last two years" in option B conflicting with "Following several years of declining advertising sales". I understand that the ads sales have been decreasing until the time of sales reps reorganization".

Meanwhile, in option E, I understand that before the reorganization, there are 5 industry types and 5 retailing types. Later the sales reps add more industry types and retailing types (i.e. 7 industry types and 8 retailing types), meaning more customers and hence potentially more sales.

Please let me know your thoughts on the reasoning above.

(E) Among the advertisers in the Greenvile Times are there more types of retail business or more types of industrial business?

In option (E), all you will get to know is whether currently, there are more retail businesses or industrial businesses that advertise. 
Say the answer is "there are more retail businesses" - then? How does that impact your conclusion?
Say the answer is "there are more industrial businesses" - then? How does that impact your conclusion?

As I said before, the 'last 2 years' thing did throw me off too but option (B) is still the best. 'Last 2 years' just means 'in the recent times'. 

(B) Has the circulation of the Greenvile Times increased substantially in the recent times?

Any issues with it now? No. If circulation has increased in recent times, it is likely that more advertising sales came in because of that. If circulation has stayed the same or decreased, then it is more likley that reorganisation caused the increase in advertising sales

Anyone on what is circulation of newspapers mean?

Increase in circulation means more copies of the paper are sold now than before. 

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dear experts egmat KarishmaB MartyTargetTestPrep  please elaborate option D , still not able to comprehend  reasoning behind option D

Can,Will - tell me your reasoning... and your doubt behind choice D. I will be happy to explain why that is wrong.

egmat Thank you for the reply.

Initially I was confused between B and D .
If the circulation has increased then the times now has more readers. More readers mean it might ask for increased fees to publish ads in the newspaper or more clients would approach to the times to publish ads. so it makes sense to say that it was not the reorganization but the circulation that has increased the sales.

But in D, lets say Reorganization has already took place but few of the sales representatives have standing order for a fixed amount of advertising per month . So in such scenario revenue being generated from these orders already been accounted as revenue before the re organization ? And if the revenue for these orders are not accounted before the reorganization then what does 'for a fixed amount of advertising per month' mean ? fixed amount of advertisement per how many months ?
not able to understand the logic/reasoning behind option D