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# The Orange corporation is conducting market research in preparation fo

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Intern
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The Orange corporation is conducting market research in preparation fo  [#permalink]

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04 Jun 2015, 19:29
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55% (hard)

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63% (01:51) correct 37% (02:12) wrong based on 443 sessions

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The Orange Corporation is conducting market research in preparation for the launch of its new device, the 3-D eSlate. Thus far, in Orange's market research, two groups have emerged as likely buyers of the eSlate: medical professionals and people making more than $250,000 a year. Since the number of medical professionals in the target market plus the number of people making more than$250,000 a year in the target market is over 20 million people, Orange projects that if one-fourth of people in these target markets buy the eSlate, Orange will sell over 5 million units of the eSlate.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the author's conclusion?

(A)  In surveys, less than 5% of medical professionals in the target market said they would buy the eSlate.
(B)  The eSlate has many more uses for education professionals than for medical professionals.
(C)  Previous projections from the Orange Corporation have generally been too optimistic.
(D)  Many medical professionals make more than $250,000 a year. (E) People who make more than$250,000 a year buy more electronic devices than people who make less than $250,000 a year Manager Joined: 21 Aug 2014 Posts: 136 GMAT 1: 610 Q49 V25 GMAT 2: 730 Q50 V40 Re: The Orange corporation is conducting market research in preparation fo [#permalink] ### Show Tags 08 Jun 2015, 03:27 2 2 Buyer 1 (medical professionals)+ Buyer 2 (people making >$250k) >=20million people
one fourth of 20m (=5m) people buy, then it will sell over 5m units

Weakener:
Maybe the sale won’t be equal to 5m units and you have overestimated facts from a survey
OR to say that survey results are not exact replica of the population

I was confused between A and D, so let's see this again.

A- in surveys, less than 5% of medical professionals in the target market said they would buy the eSlate.
Well even if in the survey you have less than 5% of the medical professionals, the Corporation has counted all the "actual" medical professionals in the area in the equation. So this choice does NOT affect the conclusion.

D- Many medical professionals make more than $250,000 a year. In the equation above it is assumed that Buyer 1 (medical professionals)+ Buyer 2 (people making >$250k) are EXCLUSIVE groups.
However, this choice says that MANY Buyer 1 (medical professionals) section fall into Buyer 2 category!
Well, then 5m units cannot be sold, and the survey has clearly over-estimated the sale.

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Re: The Orange corporation is conducting market research in preparation fo  [#permalink]

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27 Aug 2015, 23:20
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shagalo wrote:
The Orange corporation is conducting market research in preparation for the launch of its new device, 3-D eSlate. Thus far, in Orange's market research, two groups have emerged as likely buyers of the eSlate: medical professionals and people making more than $250,000 a year. Since the number of medical professionals in target market plus the number of people making more than$250,000 a year in the target market is over 20 million people, Orange projects that if one-fourth of people in these markets buy the eSlate, Orange will sell over 5 million units of the eSlate.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the author's conclusion ?

A- in surveys, less than 5% of medical professionals in the target market said they would buy the eSlate.
B- The eSlate has many more uses for education professionals than for medical professionals.
C- previous projections from the Orange Corporation have generally been too optimistic.
D- Many medical professionals make more than $250,000 a year. E- People who make more than$250,000 a year buy more electronic devices than people who make less than $250,000 a year. Source: Manhattan GMAT Prep. I will unfortunately have to disagree with Patronus, because I think (A) does represent a problem, because the argument does not take into account that just 5% (vs. the assumed $$\frac{1}{4}$$ = 25%) of the medical professionals would buy the eSlate. Step I IMO, it's easy to eliminate (B) - out of scope, (C) - weakens, but is to vague and isn't strong enough, (E) - also out of scope. Step II Left with (A) and (E), my thinking goes as follows: (A) - Starting from the assumption that 25% of the total 20M target market (medical professionals and individuals with income >$250k), knowing that just 5% of the medical professionals would buy the product is a red flag. Nevertheless, if you think about it, it could turn out that from the individuals with income >$250k not 25%, but 50% would want to buy the eSlate. This eventually may result in achieving the predefined sales goal. This extreme example is meant to show that (A) doesn't weaken the conclusion too strongly. It remains to be seen whether there is another answer choice to do so. (D) - (D) can easily be related to a venn diagram. If there is a substantial overlap between the two target customer groups then this does indeed result in a serious problem for the eSlate. Within this potential market of 20M individuals, the Orange Corp. may have double counted which may result in a significant decrease. Just imagine that the unique customer may end up being 10M and not 20M, eSlate still gets its target share of 25%? That's why I chose (D) as the clear winner here! Hope it helps! _________________ Thank you very much for reading this post till the end! Kudos? Manager Joined: 27 Mar 2017 Posts: 56 Re: The Orange corporation is conducting market research in preparation fo [#permalink] ### Show Tags 05 Apr 2017, 13:32 Can someone comment on my train of thought that made me exclude A and arrive at D as the correct answer. The argument states that 25% of group A (docs) + group B (>$250k) are expected to account for the sales. It does not state any where how many of individual groups. So, even if the statement A is true, the remaining 20% can be provided by the group B guys(there is no hint in the argument why it can't be so).

Is this a correct approach ? I don't want to arrive at a correct answer with wrong logic.

Thanks.

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Re: The Orange corporation is conducting market research in preparation fo  [#permalink]

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07 Apr 2017, 05:12
Top Contributor
Can someone comment on my train of thought that made me exclude A and arrive at D as the correct answer.

The argument states that 25% of group A (docs) + group B (>$250k) are expected to account for the sales. It does not state any where how many of individual groups. So, even if the statement A is true, the remaining 20% can be provided by the group B guys(there is no hint in the argument why it can't be so). Is this a correct approach ? I don't want to arrive at a correct answer with wrong logic. Thanks. Posted from my mobile device Read the conclusion properly. It states that -- "Orange projects that IF one-fourth of people in these markets buy the eSlate, Orange will sell over 5 million units of the eSlate." What people said in the surveys is irrelevant to the argument at hand. We are ONLY concerned about one scenario -- WHEN 1/4TH of people in these markets buy the e-Slate -- and the conclusion derived when this is ASSUMED to be true. This is what the argument says -- No. of people with income > 250,000$ + No. of people who are medical professionals = 20 million.
If 25% of these people purchase the item, Orange will sell over 5 million units.

Option E tries to point a flaw in the reasoning above.
Let us assume that each of these groups have 10 million people. But what if 5 million people both earn >250,000$and are also medical professionals. Then, the total number of people will be 15 million people (even though the sum of two terms will be 20 million people). Then, approximate number of units sold = 15 million * 0.25 = 3.75 million. Destroys the argument. _________________ - CrackVerbal Prep Team For more info on GMAT and MBA, follow us on @AskCrackVerbal Register for the Free GMAT Kickstarter Course : http://bit.ly/2DDHKHq Register for our Personal Tutoring Course : https://www.crackverbal.com/gmat/personal-tutoring/ Join the free 4 part GMAT video training series : http://bit.ly/2DGm8tR Senior SC Moderator Joined: 14 Nov 2016 Posts: 1323 Location: Malaysia The Orange corporation is conducting market research in preparation fo [#permalink] ### Show Tags 22 Apr 2017, 20:26 shagalo wrote: The Orange Corporation is conducting market research in preparation for the launch of its new device, the 3-D eSlate. Thus far, in Orange's market research, two groups have emerged as likely buyers of the eSlate: medical professionals and people making more than$250,000 a year. Since the number of medical professionals in the target market plus the number of people making more than $250,000 a year in the target market is over 20 million people, Orange projects that if one-fourth of people in these target markets buy the eSlate, Orange will sell over 5 million units of the eSlate. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the author's conclusion? (A) In surveys, less than 5% of medical professionals in the target market said they would buy the eSlate. (B) The eSlate has many more uses for education professionals than for medical professionals. (C) Previous projections from the Orange Corporation have generally been too optimistic. (D) Many medical professionals make more than$250,000 a year.
(E)  People who make more than $250,000 a year buy more electronic devices than people who make less than$250,000 a year

HINT: An argument asking you to weaken a conclusion is generally asking you to identify the assumptions and then select an answer that says that one of those assumptions is not true.

In order to do this, you must diagram the argument, and be able to identify the conclusion you are trying to weaken.

The first sentence of the argument is just giving background information and doesn't seem to really be part of the argument. The premises in the argument seem to go as follows (use “MPs” for “medical professionals” and “250Ks” for “people making more than \$250,000 a year”):

eSlate likely buyers: MPs and 250KsMPs + 250Ks = over 20 million
IF 1/4 of those buy the eSlate, THEN over 5 million will buy

Is there a problem with this logic?

Keep in mind that the argument DOES NOT say that one-fourth of the target market WILL buy the eSlate. It only says that IF they did buy it, more than 5 million sales will result.

Therefore, some of the WRONG answers are likely to try to prove that one-fourth of the target market will not buy the eSlate. You don't care! The argument will NOT be weakened by that assertion. The “if” in the argument is very important! (For instance, the argument, “IF America became a monarchy, it would be likely to allow female monarchs” is not weakened by the assertion that America is very unlikely to become a monarchy.)

Examine the premises of this argument as a little math problem. Two groups add up to over 20 million people. If one-fourth of the people in those groups buy a product, over 5 million products will be sold. What's wrong with that?
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Re: The Orange corporation is conducting market research in preparation fo  [#permalink]

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10 Aug 2019, 07:27
Lovely question. If people get stuck, it is between options A and D. Option A if true, can still have 5mil+ sales because question does not give split up of people that are Med and "Income over 250000".

D conclusively weakens the argument.

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Re: The Orange corporation is conducting market research in preparation fo   [#permalink] 10 Aug 2019, 07:27
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