Sajjad1994 wrote:
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.
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.
(B) More than 50% of the people trained by Mr. Cooper went on to become successful salespeople.
(C) One of the successful salespeople who trained under Mr. Cooper was not an accomplished salesperson before learning the Cooper Method.
(D) There is a large and expanding industry dedicated to training salespeople.
(E) There is no one method with which to approach sales; a method that works for one person may not for another person.
Source: Nova GMAT
Difficulty Level: 650
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.