mayankmalik01 wrote:
Hi,
Thanks for explaining why C is correct . I understand the point why C seems to be correct answer. But, I have a slightly different doubt:
According to me, Inference can be made only from the given argument (and we can not assume any other external info).
So, basically an inference is something which we can PRETHINK also by analyzing the given text only.
But in option C , it provides external info that is 'online do-it-yourself home repair instructions are sold by home service technicians', which is never mentioned in the argument. So this introduces external info , which makes this inference incorrect.
The argument should contain that home service technicians also sale online do-it-yourself home repair instructions in addition to doing service at home . Then only this ans would be correct.
Please let me know if i am wrong!!!!!!!
Dear
mayankmalik01,
I'm happy to respond.
First of all, with all due respect, I want to point out a grammar flaw in what you wrote. The word "
sale" is a noun, and the word "
sell" is a verb. Does this make sense?
I would say that this argument doesn't bring in too much new information in the answer choice. I believe the GMAT itself does this some times. An inference should be a conclusion completely obvious from the prompt, but it may involve a detail not mentioned in the prompt.
Here, we don't know whether home service technicians sold online do-it-yourself home repair instructions. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't. We don't know. Choice
(C) says: "
The overall sale of online do-it-yourself home repair instructions by home service technicians has not been equal to the loss of revenue the technicians have incurred due to free offerings of this sort of material." Well, if there were absolutely no online sales, then the revenue from those sales would be zero, and they certainly would not be equal to money lost. The answer choice is perfectly correct even if the home service technicians sold nothing online.
We are told about a "
decrease in revenue for home service technicians." We know for a fact that those folks have had a net decline in revenue. They have definitely lost revenue from service calls to people's homes. If they have had a net decline in revenue, that means whatever gain in revenue they have had,
from any source, is not as big as what they lost because of the online offerings. The fact that the new source of revenue was not explicitly mentioned in the prompt is not a big issue here, because we already know that
any source of revenue would not be equal to what they lost, because they had a net decline in revenue. The identity of the source of income is logically less important then the fact that it is a source of income. Think about if
(C) were:
"
Any additional source of revenue has not been equal to the loss of revenue the technicians have incurred due to free offerings of this sort of material." That is undeniably correct from the prompt. All they did was remove the generic "
any source of revenue" and plug in a specific source of revenue. This change adds distracting detail but does not change anything in the fundamental logical relationships.
The PRETHINK rule that you cite is a bit too fundamentalist. It's perfectly fine for the OA to introduce a new idea if the logical framework for the idea is already treated in the prompt argument. Does this distinction make sense?
Mike