Steve Cooper, senior sales officer, has trained many top salespeople i

Hi

I do not think this question is an assumption one. To me, it seems more of a strengthen the argument question and even in that category "B" sounds more plausible than "C".

Hi Abhimahna,

Although I got this question right, I am still confused with this option. I only chose this option because I was able to eliminate the others but this option also doesn't seem to be the right assumption because it is talking about one instance out of X number of people he trained.

Keeping the conclusion in mind, one would assume that the salesmen he trained to become successful were not already the best salesmen in the department. How can one such instance be the assumption?

I think 'D' is a better answer choice, as it talks about how there are many others like Mr. Cooper who are in the training industry, therefore implying that the skills can be taught.

Steve Cooper, senior sales officer, has trained many top salespeople in this company, including 14 who have become the top salespersons in their regions and 3 who have won the top salesperson award. Although there is an art to selling, Mr. Cooper’s success at training top salespeople shows that the skills required to become a top salesperson can be both taught and learned.

Conclusion - - Skills for sales person can be taught and learned.
What are we looking for - - Something which is a must for the conclusion to hold true.

The argument depends on which one of the following assumptions?

(A) Mr. Cooper does not teach the hard-sell method. Nor does he teach the I’ll-be-yourpal method. Instead, he stresses the professional-client relationship.
-- Need not be always true. Whats if Mr C taught hard-sell methods and students learned it .??

(B) More than 50% of the people trained by Mr. Cooper went on to become successful salespeople.
-- Again need not always be true. What if 49% students are successful.

(C) One of the successful salespeople who trained under Mr. Cooper was not an accomplished salesperson before learning the Cooper Method.
-- This is the correct choice. Negate this - Not a single trainee was not an accomplished salesperson before learning. (Or) "All the trainees were accomplished sales person." - If there were already accomplished then Mr Cooper's method did not help them. This is the base of reasoning here. So negated choice breaks the conclusion ,and hence C is the correct choice.

(D) There is a large and expanding industry dedicated to training salespeople.
-- Irrelevant.
(E) There is no one method with which to approach sales; a method that works for one person may not for another person.
-- Not required to be must be true to hold the conclusion.

conclusion-selling skills can be taught and learned
Gap in logic: without art of selling, skills can be taught easily
A1:sales person before learning skill was not a top salesperson
(A) Mr. Cooper does not teach the hard-sell method. Nor does he teach the I’ll-be-yourpal method. Instead, he stresses the professional-client relationship. out of scope
(B) More than 50% of the people trained by Mr. Cooper went on to become successful salespeople. - we do not really about percentage of people, it goes too way out of conclusion
(C) One of the successful salespeople who trained under Mr. Cooper was not an accomplished salesperson before learning the Cooper Method. - that is gap, if we negate it, it will break conclusion hence correct OA
(D) There is a large and expanding industry dedicated to training salespeople. -irreleavnt,eliminated
(E) There is no one method with which to approach sales; a method that works for one person may not for another person. - comparison of method of teaching sales, irrelevant

Official Explanation

If the salespeople trained by Mr. Cooper were successful before studying under him, then clearly the argument would be specious. On the other hand, if none of the salespeople were successful before studying under him, then the argument would be strong. However, the argument does not require this strong of a statement in order to be valid. All it needs is one person who profited from the tutelage of Mr. Cooper. The answer is (C).

Many students have problems with this type of question. They read through the answer-choices and find no significant statements. They may pause at (C) but reject it—thinking that the argument would be deceptive if only one person out of 17 profited from the tutelage of Mr. Cooper. However, the missing premise doesn’t have to make the argument good, just valid.

I think gmat ninja has explained the problem with assumption negation technique for some problems. I also fell for the trap of (one of the vs atleast) but the fact is that even if one (or more) I was not a super salesman before and only became so after Mr Cooper’s training, then we can reasonably draw our conclusion.

This is basically eliminating the reverse causality.

Posted from my mobile device