Following several years of declining advertising sales, the Greenvile

We are told that revenue from advertising sales has increased. We need to explain that increase. Was it caused by the reorganization or by something else?

Choice (D) does not provide an alternative explanation for the increased revenues. If anything, choice (D) explains why revenues would NOT increase (since there is a FIXED amount of advertising per month).

Since it neither provides an alternative explanation nor suggests whether "the improvement in advertising sales can properly be attributed to the reorganization", choice (D) is irrelevant.
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Conclusion:
The reorganization caused the improvement in ad sales.

Rephrase the answer choices as extreme STATEMENTS.
Rephrased as an extreme statement, the correct answer will STRENGTHEN OR WEAKEN the conclusion.
Note:
any = at least one

A: A large proportion of the total revenue of the Greenvile Times is generated by advertising sales.
This statement does not strengthen or weaken the conclusion that the reorganization caused the improvement in ad sales.

B: The circulation of the Greenvile Times has increased substantially in the last two years.
This statement offers an ALTERNATE EXPLANATION for the increase in ad sales, WEAKENING conclusion that
that the reorganization caused the improvement in ad sales.

C: The computer industry accounts for the largest proportion of the newspaper's advertising sales.
This statement does not strengthen or weaken the conclusion that the reorganization caused the improvement in ad sales.

D: At least one of the sales representatives of the Greenvile Times has a standing order with the Times for a fixed amount of advertising per month.
This statement does not strengthen or weaken the conclusion that the reorganization caused the improvement in ad sales.

E: Among the advertisers in the Greenvile Times, there are many more types of retail business than types of industrial business.
This statement does not strengthen or weaken the conclusion that the reorganization caused the improvement in ad sales.

Rephrased as a statement, only B strengthens or weakens the conclusion that the reorganization caused the improvement in ad sales.


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THE REORGANISATION CAUSED THE INCREASE IN ADVERTISING SALES....... WE NEED TO CHECK IF THERE COULD HAVE BEEN AN ALTERNATE CAUSE FOT THE SAME?
WHAT IF MORE PEOPLE NOW READ THE Greenvile Times THAN BEFORE AND HENCE THE ADVERTISING SALES HAS INCREASED........

HERE "B" AND " D" ARE CONTENDERS......


(B) Has the circulation of the Greenvile Times increased substantially in the last two years? YES/ NO TO THIS QUESTION WILL DECIDE IF THE NEW REORGANIZATION WAS THE CAUSE FOR INCREASED SALES OR NOT.... CORRECT..

(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?.....IF FIXED AMOUNT OF ADVERTISING HAS ALREADY BEEN STIPULATED, HOW COULD THE SALES INCREASE ? IF IT SAID THAT THE CLIENTILE BASE INCREASED WITH FIXED AMOUNT OF STANDING ORDERS, THEN IT COULD HAVE BEEN CORRECT...... HENCE INCORRECT..


KUDOS IF YOU PLEASE....

The OE:

The reasoning: What additional evidence would help determine the source of the increased revenue? In order to attribute to the reorganization of the sales force, other possible causes must be eliminated. (I was headed this direction though). Newspapers advertising rates are linked to circulation; when circulation increases, higher rates can be charged and revenues will increase. (I though prior knowledge is NOT required in GMAT???) An alternative explanation might be a significant rise in circulation, so it would be particularly helpful to know if circulation had increased.

B: Correct. This statement provides another possible explanation for increased revenue of advertising sales, and so the answer to this question would help to clarifiy the reason for the increased revenue.

OG2017 Diagnostic V70, P34

Advertising Sales
 
Step 1: Identify the Question

The questions ask which of the answers would be most helpful to find out, so this is an Evaluate the Argument question.

Step 2: Deconstruct the Argument

Reorg ad department
Old – geo
New – industry
© Sales up - due to reorg?

The conclusion that you are supposed to evaluate is stated in the question stem: whether the improvement in advertising sales can properly be attributed to the reorganization.

Step 3: Pause and State the Goal

On Evaluate questions, the correct answer is information that is important in determining whether the conclusion is believable. In this case, what would make it more or less likely that the reorganization actually caused the change in ad sales? Are there any other factors that might have generated this result?

Step 4: Work from Wrong to Right

(A) The amount of revenue from advertising sales relative to other revenue sources does not impact whether the reorganization is the cause of the increase in advertising sales.
(B) CORRECT. The circulation of the newspaper is important to advertising revenues; advertisers will pay more if circulation is higher because the ads reach more people. Increased circulation would WEAKEN the conclusion because it provides an alternative explanation for increased ad revenues. If circulation has NOT increased, the conclusion would be SUPPORTED because it is more likely the reorganization caused the increase.
(C) The exact types of businesses advertising and the proportions of advertising revenues that these businesses represent do not directly speak to whether the reorganization caused an increase in revenues.
(D) The conclusion of the argument regards whether increased revenues can be attributed to the reorganization; the exact structure of contracts for particular clients is not directly related. If anything, contracts for a fixed amount of advertising do not fall into the increased sales category.
(E) The types of businesses, specifically the proportion of retail versus industrial businesses, do not directly influence whether the reorganization was the cause of increased revenues.
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Can someone please provide a line of reasoning for eliminating choice D ??

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? --Proportion? out of scope

(B) Has the circulation of the Greenvile Times increased substantially in the last two years? --Correct. If the circulation has increased then reorganization didn't work

(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? --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 would weaken the argument

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

Hey nightblade354

Can you please explain why B is OA and why option D is worng ?

teaserbae,

Please see Gmatninja's post as it is quite helpful. In short, (D) doesn't do anything for us. If we know that some do have set orders, that's great. But it doesn't explain how revenue increased (this would keep it flat). The increase, then, could have been from advertising, but it could have been from something else. All we know is that something is causing an increase, and it isn't those currently on a contract. So this leaves way too much room for assumption and ambiguity.

Does this help?
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Hi,

I am not convinced why B is the correct answer.

The reorganization has caused the sales representative to gain more industry related knowledge by interacting with the industry specific clients. I believe this will enable them to make better advertisements for those industries they have been interacting with.

Circulation is anyway going to be necessary to ensure that readers will take a look at those 'better advertisements' and will this increased readership increase advertising sales revenue?

I think circulation and reorganization are both necessary. Why does it seem that they are trying to make it separate in the way the question is asked?

1. Old strategy - by geography
2. New strategy(after reorganisation) - by industry

And we have to prove that as a result of the reorganisation, the sales of revenue increased.

And that's why I had chosen option C as my answer as it talked about industry. If C was valid, it would mean that the focus on industry helped as it accounted for the large proportion of newspaper sales? isn't this right? Could someone please help to explain why A is correct?

Quick note: the OA for this question is (B), so I'll explain why (B) is correct.

Take another look at the exact wording of the question: "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?"

This is different than saying we "have to prove that as a result of the reorganisation, the sales of revenue increased." We are not trying to prove anything, but rather assess whether the the improvement in sales can be attributed to the reorganization. To do this, we are looking for a question that, if answered, would shed more light on the cause of the increase in advertising revenue.

With this in mind, take another look at (C):

Would answering this question help us to assess whether the reorganization accounts for the increase in advertising revenue? Does it make a difference whether the "largest proportion of the newspaper's advertising sales" comes from restaurants, or clothing shops, or car dealerships, or any other type of industry?

Simply put: no, the answer to this question does not shed light on why the advertising revenues have increased. Any one of those options could account for the largest proportion of sales, and it would not affect our assessment of how the reorganization impacted the advertising revenue. (C) is out.

Now, look again at (B):

Again, we need to ask: does answering this question help us to assess whether the reorganization accounts for the increase in advertising revenue?

If the circulation of the newspaper has increased substantially in the past two years, then maybe more retailers have elected to advertise their businesses in the paper. Or, maybe the newspaper can charge more for advertisements that are now reaching a greater audience. This provides an alternative explanation to the increase in advertising revenue -- maybe the increase had nothing at all to do with the reorganization of the sales representatives. This would weaken the argument that the improvement in advertising sales can properly be attributed to the reorganization.

If, on the other hand, the circulation has not increased substantially in the past two years, then this alternative explanation would not be introduced. The argument that the improvement in advertising sales can properly be attributed to the reorganization would be stronger if circulation has not increased substantially.

Finding out the answer to the question posed in (B) would help us assess whether the reorganization accounts for the increase in advertising revenue, so (B) is the correct answer.

I hope that helps!
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GMATNinja can you give few options which can prove that sales increased because of reorganization ?

From the information in the passage, there is no way of proving sales increased because of the information. Thankfully, we're not asked to prove this.

We're asked to identify which answer choice would provide the most useful information in determining whether the increase in advertising sales can properly be attributed to the reorganization.

In other words, we can eliminate an answer choice if that information would not help us decide whether the reorganization was a success.

For example, (A) tells us:

We're not interested in the proportion of the total revenue of the Greenville Times generated by advertising sales. We're interested in why the total revenue generated by advertising sales has increased.

Having the information in this answer choice would NOT help determine whether the reorganization caused the increase in advertising sales, so we can eliminate (A).

Continuing this process for the other answer choices will show why (B) is the correct answer.

I hope that helps!
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Thanks GMATNinja, but actually my doubt was that if the question asked us to find the option which can prove that sales got increased because of reorganization, then what could be the possible options to support this claim? Just wanted to get an idea.

I am very confused for the answer choice C
As in C --meaning derived from C is:
*If we the share from each business say industrial and retailing then they must have worked upon it by concentrating on particular type of field.
so ,why this is the wrong choice as it will strengthen our conclusion ---(the advertising sales from the GT are high because of their re-organisation of staff)
In B they said about the circulation of GT magazine how it strength the conclusion that re organisation is the cause for more sales in GT.
Thanks in advance for the replies from all the experts .
Kudos please.

We're very hesitant to offer possible answers to hypothetical questions. The point of a CR question is to examine the passage and find the best answer choice to the question written, based on the information available.

There are several risks in trying to think of a possible answer before examining the answer choices. You may end up wasting time by eliminating every answer choice if none of them match your answer. Alternatively, you might prejudice yourself against the correct answer if it doesn't match the one you've thought of.

It's far better to focus on the question you've been asked and attempt to eliminate each answer choice in turn independently, based on the information in the passage. We've gone through the process we recommend using for CR questions, and the reasons why we recommend this method, in this post.


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.

I hope that helps!
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Can someone please explain why A is incorrect?
May be the proportion earlier was lesser and after the re- organisation the proportion has actually increased. This tells us that the advertising sales has increased if we have a larger proportion

VeritasKarishma LogicGuru1 ChiranjeevSingh
GMATNinja

please explain option B

for evaluate it should answer two extremes
if circulation increased then it weakens the reorganization plan

but if circulation not increased how it strengthens there may be possibility that for existing clients they may charge more therefore revenue would increased
there is possibility if they don't charge more then it will strengthens

i'm bit confused