Following several years of declining advertising sales, the Greenvile

Question

Following several years of declining advertising sales, the  Greenvile Times  reorganized its advertising sales force. Before reorganization, the sales force was organized geographically, with some sales representatives concentrating on city-center businesses and others concentrating on different outlying regions. The reorganization attempted to increase the sales representatives' knowledge of clients' business by having each sales representative deal with only one type of industry or of retailing. After the reorganization, revenue from advertising sales increased.

In assessing whether the improvement in advertising sales can properly be attributed to the reorganization, it would be most helpful to find out which of the following?

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

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

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

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

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

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ID: 100766

CEdward · Answer

There is a lot of discussion about the merits of B and D...I think quite clearly that D is out because all it tells us is that there are fixed pays...that doesn't get us any closer to explaining the increase.

I find it interesting that nobody has looked at C more closely. The question is about attribution. We want to know whether the change in strategy - increasing worker's knowledge of clients in specific industries is responsible for the increased sales. Why not C? C would give us the data we need to determine whether that intellectual capital investment is paying dividends. Presumably those industries which are included in the training are the ones where we would see the largest spike in sales.

Can someone chime in?

GMATNinja · Answer

We've written an explanation of why (C) is not the correct answer in  this post  -- take a look and let us know if you have any further questions.

CRACKGMATNUT · Answer

There's no time line representation in the question, Viz. when did the reorganization happen? 
I din select answer B for the sole reason. Logically option B totally fits the bill.

Can anyone explain how we can conclude that re-organization & increased sales, after several years of declining sales, both of them started exactly 2 years back, and not 5 years back or for that matter 6 months back?

GMATNinja · Answer

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!

Aparna05 · Answer

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.

likitwill · Answer

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.

Alieva · Answer

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?

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

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.

MinhChau789 · Answer

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.

KarishmaB · Answer

(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

anikpait17 · Answer

Anyone on what is circulation of newspapers mean?

KarishmaB · Answer

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

Can,Will · Answer

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

egmat · Answer

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

Can,Will · Answer

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

SnorLax_7 · Answer

mikemcgarry   KarishmaB   DmitryFarber

I have understood the correct option and the argument. what I am not able to undertstand is that we are making assumption in option B that increase of circulation caused more customers to advertise or more demand thats why adv revenue increased, but we have been strictly told to not make assumptions in the strenghten /weaken questions' options.
How to differentiate or to make mental note that to what extent we can assume in option ?

KarishmaB · Answer

It is not an assumption, it is logical reasoning. We want to evaluate this: Is A responsible for B? We know that C could be responsible for B too. So we are asking the question whether C happened. If it did, then C could be responsible for B. If not, then it is more likely that A is responsible for B. That is why option (B) is useful to evaluate whether A is responsible for B or not. Useful to Evaluate is discussed here: https://youtu.be/1JtHjH1lWZc

Gemmie · Answer

(A)  What proportion of the total revenue of the Greenvile Times is generated by advertising sales?  
This information is not directly relevant to assessing the effectiveness of the reorganization, as it does not help us understand the impact of the reorganization on advertising sales.

(B)    Has the circulation of the Greenvile Times increased substantially in the last two years?  
An increase in circulation could lead to increased advertising sales, independent of the reorganization. Knowing this would help us determine if other factors besides the reorganization contributed to the increase in sales.

(C)  Among all types of industry and retailing that use the Greenvile Times as an advertising vehicle, which type accounts for the largest proportion of the newspaper's advertising sales? 
This does not directly help us assess the impact of the reorganization. It simply provides a breakdown of current advertising sales by industry or retail type.

(D)  Do any clients of the sales representatives of the Greenvile Times have a standing order with the Times for a fixed amount of advertising per month? 
This could indicate a steady source of advertising revenue that is unaffected by the reorganization. If many clients have standing orders, the impact of the reorganization might be less significant than if all sales were made on a non-recurring basis.

(E)  Among the advertisers in the Greenvile Times are there more types of retail business or more types of industrial business? 
This does not help assess the effectiveness of the reorganization, as it does not address changes in sales performance related to the reorganization.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Following several years of declining advertising sales, the Greenvile

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Following several years of declining advertising sales, the Greenvile

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