Really good question. This problem is a great example of why noticing precision in language - any extra adjectives, modifiers, etc. that the testmaker writes in to the problem that doesn't really have to be there - is so critical.

Look at the main premise - we're basing this conclusion that those distributing videos will have a hard time (once the market is saturated) on the fact that:

Six months after getting a video recorder, many early buyers apparently lost interest in obtaining videos to watch on it...

NOTE: that's a really specific group of people who lost interest. It's not "most buyers"...it's most EARLY buyers. And then we draw a big general conclusion about the whole industry based on that really specific group.

Choice (D) gives a reason for why that particular group isn't necessarily representative of the whole: if early buyers are heavily predisposed to quickly tiring of whatever new product they purchase, then we can't necessarily extrapolate their disinterest to "everyone." Early adopters aren't a great predictor of what the whole market will do.

Note that this follows a common CR argument structure called "Generalization" - when data about a small subset of the whole is used to draw a sweeping, general conclusion about the whole (e.g. "The new restaurant must not be doing well (generalization) because when I drove by it yesterday the parking lot was nearly empty (one data point).") When you suspect generalization is the case, if it's a weaken question you want to show that that data point is an outlier ("however, when I drove by it was a Tuesday afternoon, typically the least popular time for anyone to be at a restaurant"), and if it's a strengthen question you want to show that it's representative of the whole ("and that was on a Friday at 7pm, when every other restaurant in town was experiencing hour-long waits to get a table").
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D is most relevant.

The argument is that an initial group of people bought a video recorder and then grew tired of it after so many months and then stop obtaining new videos. The conclusion is that once everyone who buys this new video recorder (100% market saturation) and then tire of it will ultimately hurt the video production market.

The point of D pokes a hole in this conclusion by showing that author's test group of "initial buyers" may not have the same usage pattern with the video recorder as a "future buyer" might. In a nutshell, D states that the author may be comparing apples to oranges which means that the argument is not conclusive.

D is the best

If the trade of buseness ...still be a buoyant, businesses distributing videos DOES NOT face hard times.
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i will also go with D

Here is the reasoning :-

Conclusion :-
Once the market for video recorders is saturated ->businesses distributing videos face hard times.
Cause -> Effect

Alternate Cause -> Same Effect
D) The early buyers of a novel product are always people who are quick to acquire novelties, but also often as quick to tire of them.

Its not because market is saturated , but because early buyers got tired and didnot use the product
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I will go with D.

The conclusion is based on the assumtion that after six months early buyers loose interest in video. But it's about early buyers, not all buyers. It's wrongly assumed that ALL buyers will be tired from videos after six month usage. The answer D states that only early buyers feel it. Thus, next buyer ("old") will keep interest more than six month, and thus business will find its market.

Premise1: Six months or so after getting a video recorder, many early buyers apparently lost interest in obtaining videos to watch on it

Premsie 2:The trade of businesses selling and renting videos is still buoyant, because the number of homes with video recorders is still growing
Conclusion:But clearly, once the market for video recorders is saturated, businesses distributing videos face hard times.
Note that the real concluion is not "businesses distributing videos face hard times" but the fact that "Market will become satuarated" and what is the premise....some early buyers have apparenty lost insterest in buying videos to watch it...
what weakens that "video makt will staurate"?
anything which shows that this losing interest beong to a specific community of buyers and not a trend in general. hence D
Though D is the answer choice because it sounds best,it is important to know why it is the best

My answer is B. Here are the reasons.

Option A: This is introducing another condition but the conclusion clearly stated [highlight]"once the market for game consoles is saturated"[/highlight]. Eliminated.
Option C: Few customers have raised complaints however to weaken the claim we would have to assume that those customers would buy new products as they are launched to address their defect. Also "few" customers means few opportunities to distribute and hence the hard times mentioned in the argument would still be a reality. Eliminated.
Option D: Strengthen the claim. Eliminated.
Option E: Again strengthens the claim and hence eliminated.

IMO D. The early buyers are not suitable subjects of survey causing the entire argument to fail.

@gmat1011 : B is wrong because early buyers lost interest of videos to watch on the recorders. As Video Features are supplements to the videos, we can surely say that they will not attract the buyers. Moreover further information on Video Features are not provided in the passage allowing us to clear this choice easily.

I'm struggling with what the conclusion is based on the responses above. It looks like the conclusion could be the first sentence, because the writer uses the word apparently, which is his/her opinion/conclusion. If that's the case, isn't the conclusion that early buyers don't want videos to watch on their recorder. It implies that there must be something wrong with the recorder. It doesn't imply that people don't like watching videos, because the demand for players is still high. If you want to weaken this conclusion, which I think means on the contrary, wouldn't C be on the contrary. Since people still want to watch videos, they will need a player. If there aren't very many complaints, then why wouldn't people want the player that the early buyers bought.

keyword "clearly" separates the conclusion from the premise.

Paraphrase - People get tired of watching the VCR after 6 months of purchase. The sales which is high now will slacken in the coming days. Clearly, the market for VCR is going to face hard times when the market is saturated.

"Weaken" means weaken the conclusion.

(D) The early buyers of a novel product are always people who are quick to acquire novelties, but also often as quick to tire of them. -> this tells us that there will ALWAYS be a market for the product and hence weakens the conclusion.

Assumtion: Early buyers => tired of product
Late buyers will => tried of product becasue Early buyers = late buyers
D's point: Early buyers =/= (might not) later buyers so the argument falls apart.

Sure, but the passage or (D) does not indicate that the early buyers are not bored anymore and so will continue to purchase videos, which will weaken the conclusion. Passage suggests that early buyers are bored and once all buyers are bored, the businesses will fail. (D) explains the buying patern of early buyers but doesn't say why this set of people will buy videos again (after all they are all bored and why would you buy videos if you are bored).

I think you interpret the videos they bought the next time is the "same" buy. However nowhere its indicated - they are going to buy same things. Are you assuming this? If yes you are making a lot of assumptions

And lets even if they watch ALL of them, they still get bored and tired. So the demand is "never" ceasing and supply is on the way. The business is going to be rich and richie rich!

Conclusion is..once the market for video recorders is saturated, businesses distributing videos face hard times

In a weaken an argument question if we can find an alternative reason we can weaken the argument.

Not very clear on your explaination. Can you please elaborate.

Conclusion: once the market for video recorders is saturated, businesses distributing videos face hard times.
Premise 1) Six months or so after getting a video recorder, many early buyers apparently lost interest in obtaining videos to watch on it.
premise 2.)The trade of businesses selling and renting videos is still buoyant, because the number of homes with video recorders is still growing.

Carefully observe the bolded parts.
Premise 1 talks about only early buyers losing interest and not the whole population of buyers.
premise 2 talks about that thetrade is good as the number of people (not the early buyers but others as-well) who purchase video players is growing.

Now you can easily, find the option which attacks the conclusion.

option D:The early buyers of a novel product are always people who are quick to acquire novelties, but also often as quick to tire of them.
If early buyers have a habbit of buying and retiring their purchase quickly , then it will not effect the other people as stated in premise 2 "the number of homes with video recorders is still growing".
Option D segregates early buyers from rest of the buyers and hence weakens the conclusion that all people will lose interest in buying videos after saturation.

@conty911 - good explanation

Here is another take on the explanation:

The author makes his conclusion by generalizing the behavior of a segment of population - early buyers. The author says, that because early buyers lost interest in renting movies, so would later buyer and hence concludes that the business of renting is doomed.

While making the conclusion the author makes the assumption that the behavior of later buyers is the same as that of early buyers.

Choice D: In indicates that the early buyers may be different from the later buyers. Once you add this information to the conclusion the conclusion does not seem as strong (& hence weakened)

Let me know if this helps.

Rajat
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Hello.

My 2 cents for choosing D. Hope it helps!

First, this is a "weaken" question, the MOST IMPORTANT thing is finding correct conclusion and its assumptions.

ANALYZE THE QUESTION:

Premise 1: Six months or so after getting a video game console, the market becomes saturated.
Premise 2: Early buyers apparently lost interest in obtaining games to play on the gaming console.
Premise 3: The trade of business selling and renting games is still buoyant, because the number of homes with video game consoles is still growing.

Conclusion: once the market for game consoles is saturated, businesses distributing games face hard times.

Assumption: if the market has NOT saturated yet, customers still keep renting video game = businesses distributing game consoles do not face hard time.

ATTACK THE CONCLUSION:

The author assumes that once the market for game consoles is saturated, businesses distributing game face hard times. It means if the market has NOT saturated yet, customers still keep renting video game. Only when market is saturated, customers will be bored of renting video games and stop doing so. Nope, what if customers who rent video games are people attracted by "NEW" stuffs but will be tired of this kind of stuff very quickly. It means they will stop renting video games even when the market for game consoles still grows. Clearly, the conclusion falls apart.

OPTION D:
(D) The early buyers of a novel product are always people who are quick to acquire novelties, but also often as quick to tire of them
D says exactly the same. Hence, it's an answer.

Hope it helps.

GMATNinja GMATNinjatwo Skywalker18 mikemcgarry VeritasPrepBrian

egmat

Please help. I am stumped by this question. I cannot relate the answer D to the argument.

Please help.
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