Hey guys. Unfortunately due to a little mistake (the deadline for applying to a particular school I'd love to attend is the 1st of march, but I didn't notice that they want the OFFICIAL GMAT score report by that date) I had to rush the GMAT, and I'm going to have to take it tomorrow at 2:30pm. I'm quite confident I'll do good, since I took 760 (Q50, V42) and 740 (Q59, V42) at the 2 GMATprep practice tests, but I haven't practiced for the AWA AT ALL.
So I decided to buy the 2 GMATwrite packages so I can evaluate how I stand vs the E-grader and practice a little bit. Just did my first AOA - please tell me how much would you grade it, and how I could have improved it - I'm going to tell you the result i got from GMAT write later
Read the argument and the instructions that follow it, and then make any notes that will help you plan your response. Begin typing your response in the box at the bottom of the screen.
The following appeared in an Excelsior Company memorandum.
"The Excelsior Company plans to introduce its own brand of coffee. Since coffee is an expensive food item, and since there are already many established brands of coffee, the best way to gain customers for the Excelsior brand is to do what Superior, the leading coffee company, did when it introduced the newest brand in its line of coffees: conduct a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions, and discount coupons for the new brand."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
---------My response-----------
The argument claims that to ensure the success of the brand of coffee which Excelsior is planning to introduce, the company should emulate what the leading coffee company, called Superior, did when it introduced their most recent brand of coffee: start a temporary sales campaign. As stated, the argument is weak, because it's based on a faulty assumption and fails to consider important elements that would be relevant in evaluating the issue.
First, the claim is based on the assumption that the newest brand introduced by Superior gained much success only because of the promotion. Even if it's reasonable to assume that a sales production is a great way to attract customers and gain market share for new product, it does not mean that it is the only relevant factor. For instance, Superior could have started the promotion because it was extremely confident in the exceptional quality of its new product and therefore believed that once customers tried it because of the sales campaign, they would definitely buy it again. If Excelsior's product is substantially different from the one made by Superior, a similiar sales promotion would not ensure the same results.
In addition to this, the argument fails to examine whether if Excelsior's planned brand of coffee is aimed at the same type of consumers as Superior's newest line of coffee or not. Even if coffee is an expensive food item, the line of coffee most recently introduced by Superior might have been aimed to a particular market segment, which is not necessarily the same as the one to which Excelsior's planned product is aimed. Hence, without examining what type of customers could be potential buyers of the planned line of coffee and if they are the same type of customers that bought Superior's latest line of coffee, it is not possible to determine if conducting a similar promotion would achieve the same results.
Finally, the argument states that Superior is the leading coffee company, but does not take into consideration that this company might have launched its newest product with significant success just because of this very reason and not because of the sale. If this were the case, the strategy suggested by the author might be a complete failure for Excelsior since customers are not familiar with this brand as they are with other estabilished brands such as Superior.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed because of the abovementioned reasons, and therefore it is not possible to determine if launching a sales campaign similiar to the one conducted by the incumbent would be a successful strategy for the Excelsior company.