Travel agents are market intermediaries who make their

Question

Travel agents are market intermediaries who make their living by gathering, organizing, and dispensing information about travel-related services that is not readily available to most consumers. Through new information technologies, such as the internet much of this information can now be made directly available to consumers. Therefore, as more consumers gain access to these new technologies, demand for the services of travel agents will be drastically reduced.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

A. Travel agents routinely use the internet and other new information technologies as sources for the information they obtain for their customers.

B. The amount of information available through the internet and other new information technologies is increasing faster than the capabilities of most consumers to process it

C. Many people use travel-related services, such as airlines and hotels without consulting a travel agent.

D. The people who currently use the services of travel agents are also those most likely to gain access to new information technologies

E. The internet and other new information technologies are currently used by a relatively small proportion of the population

pinoygmat · Accepted Answer

This is a very beautiful GMAT question, which has a lot of traps. Where are the traps? The GMAT likes using qualifiers to lure test takers into traps. So what are the qualifiers here? Present and future. The conclusion states, "Demand for the services of travel agents will be drastically reduced." We are asked to WEAKEN the question. But read the conclusion carefully. We are talking about the FUTURE. Any answer choice that DOES NOT address the FUTURE is wrong. Now look at these answer choices: D. The people who currently use the services of travel agents are also those most likely to gain access to new information technologies --- This may be true. But does it affect the conclusion that the demand for services WILL BE (FUTURE) will be drastically reduced? E. The internet and other new information technologies are currently used by a relatively small proportion of the population --- This may be true. But does it affect the conclusion that the demand for services WILL BE (FUTURE) will be drastically reduced? Do not get me wrong. During my early prep I always made this error. Seems to me this is one of GMAC's favourite traps. What are other examples of this? I wrote them in my notebook. The pattern in questions (OG, GMAT PREP, Exam Pack, everything!) is just too obvious. Conclusion: talks about strength of the wooden sled (this is from OG, I will not forget this question) Wrong answer choice: correct but talks about plastic sled (very tempting) Conclusion: talks about sales Wrong answer choice: correct but talks about profitability Conclusion: talks about market share Wrong answer choice: correct but talks about costs Conclusion: talks about future viability of growing cotton plants (this is from GMAT Prep) Wrong answer choice: correct but talks about soy plants (remember this answer choice?) KUDOS for being passionate?

chetan2u · Answer

Hi  aritranew ,

B. The amount of information available through the internet and other new information technologies is increasing 
faster than the capabilities of most consumers to process it 
 this wins over E because it tells us that even though the material is avail on line and people have access to it, travel agents will still be in demand because it is not easy for people to collate and infer from vast amount of source avail on net so people will finally revert to travel agent...

E. The internet and other new information technologies are currently used by a relatively small proportion of the 
population
 here it tells us that the net and other new information technologies are currently used by a relatively small proportion of the 
population so may be today people bank upon travel agents for info but what happens in future when these tech becomes accessible to most of the people.. we have no surety that they would still go back to travel agents.. so it does not weaken the argument , it only tells us that may be the damage is not now but possibly in near future..

hope it was clear

mojorising800 · Answer

OA plz

janani · Answer

I think OA is right

The argument says that demand for travel agents will be reduced.
We're looking for a statement that says the opposite; i.e demand for travel agents will increase.

B does that. B weakens the argument that demand for travel agent will reduce.
It says there is too much information available for use by consumers. Consumers will thus look to travel agents to organize it for them. And so demand for travel agents will increase.

aniec · Answer

anyone can explain why D is not correct?

shalva · Answer

Look, the argument from the passage is:
 Demand for the services of travel agents will be drastically reduced

They ask you to weaken the argument, while (D) says:

The people who currently use the services of travel agents are also those most likely to gain access to new
information technologies

Doesn't it mean that current customers will switch to services provided by internet? If so, travel agents would loose current clients and demand for their services would be reduced.

(D) strengthens the argument, not weakens it

aritranew · Answer

Hello,

I had chosen 'E'. I was in a dilemma whether to pick B or E. Will anyone kindly explain me the logic by which 'B' wins? Thank you all in advance!

tronghieu1987 · Answer

The first problem in this question is that it is not the full version of Gmat Exam pack 1's question. A very important in the conclusion is omitted.

"Travel agents are market intermediaries who make their living by gathering, organizing, and dispensing information about travel-related services that is not readily available to most consumers. Through new information technologies, such as the internet much of this information can now be made directly available to consumers.  Therefor, as more consumers gain access to these new technologies,  demand for the services of travel agents will be drastically reduced.

And this explains why many confused in wrong choices D and E.

D says: "The people who currently use the services of travel agents are also those most likely to gain access to new 
information technologies ". This statement actually strengthens the argument because these people are going to be able to access to information in internet as well as in other technologies, thus leaving the travel agents => INCORRECT

E says: "The internet and other new information technologies are currently used by a relatively small proportion of the 
population". On the one hand, this statement does not affect the conclusion, as the conclusion says "as more consumers gain access to these new technologies...", so we don't care about "currently small proportion".

On the other hand, statement E could strengthen the conclusion because if currently the proportion of people gaining access to internet is low, then the impact of a larger proportion on the travel agents will be huge. However, if this statement had been like "the proportion of people gaining access to internet currently is very large, say 99%", then the conclusion would have been weaken because there could not have "drastic reduction".

However, for the OA B, I still could not figure out how it could weaken the conclusion. It says that "the capabilities of consumers to process information is increasing lower than the amount of information is". It does not mean that consumer cannot process information. So in order to infer that consumers will have to come back to travel agents, we actually need an important assumption.

Anonamy · Answer

B. The amount of information available through the internet and other new information technologies is increasing 
faster than the capabilities of most consumers to process it

Implies that consumers will still need travel agents to "gather, organize, and dispense information" because consumers aren't capable of processing the overload of information from the internet.

D. The people who currently use the services of travel agents are also those most likely to gain access to new 
information technologies

Potentially strengthens the argument that consumers will have less need for travel agents thereby leading to the argument's conclusion that "demand for travel agents" will fall significantly. Our goal is to weaken, not strengthen.

LogicGuru1 · Answer

The question is tricky if you slip up on the rules of CR. The correct answer is B Premise 1) Travel agent livelihood is gathering, organising, distributing (off course on demand and after getting paid) information related to tourism. Premise 2) Such info was earlier not available to common customers. Premise 3) Now internet will make such information available to all people. Conclusion)Travel agents will be outdated. Weaken the conclusion) :- Remember premise 1 :- Its the full time work of travel agent to deal with travel info , organise it and distribute it and All such info is not available to any normal person; meaning travel agents are accustomed in dealing with such kind of information (be it rare or voluminous or difficult to understand) What if despite the availability of such information on internet normal people can't understand it , or cannot process it or cannot handle the amount of such volume which is very large. Then despite being available the information is practically useless for a common man. If they cannot process it, they cannot use it. If they cannot use it they will need help. Who will come to help. A person who is a master is dealing with such information. Who is that person- the travel agent. He is not going to become obsolete soon my friend

B. The amount of information available through the internet and other new information technologies is increasing faster than the capabilities of most consumers to process it Travel agents are market intermediaries who make their living by gathering, organizing, and dispensing information about travel-related services that is not readily available to most consumers. Through new information technologies, such as the internet much of this information can now be made directly available to consumers. Demand for the services of travel agents will be drastically reduced Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument? A. Travel agents routinely use the internet and other new information technologies as sources for the information they obtain for their customers. B. The amount of information available through the internet and other new information technologies is increasing faster than the capabilities of most consumers to process it C. Many people use travel-related services, such as airlines and hotels without consulting a travel agent. D. The people who currently use the services of travel agents are also those most likely to gain access to new information technologies E. The internet and other new information technologies are currently used by a relatively small proportion of the population

hsbinfy · Answer

choose B.

this choice was my prethinking after i read the argument w/o reading answer choices

my prethinking-that if internet is available to all but what if consumers are not able to find or it is out of their capability or not in their scope.
may give them tension searching and all.some to avoid tension for couple of dollars

And when i read B i quickly marked it ,but read all other choices for 2nd opinion.

none weakened as much as B did.

abrakadabra21 · Answer

Travel agents are market intermediaries who make their living by gathering, organizing, and dispensing information about travel-related services that is not readily available to most consumers. Through new information technologies, such as the internet much of this information can now be made directly available to consumers. Demand for the services of travel agents will be drastically reduced

Demand for the service of travel agent will not drastically reduced when these factors are in play
1> Convenience and time saving
2> Information overload leading to confusion so need help from Travel agent
3> Even information is available, consumer doesn't know that how to do booking and other stuff
4> what if corporate hires travel agent more 
5> Some rural sector grow

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

B. The amount of information available through the internet and other new information technologies is increasing 
faster than the capabilities of most consumers to process it   Correct.

D. The people who currently use the services of travel agents are also those most likely to gain access to new 
information technologies :- I feel this is strengthener.

E. The internet and other new information technologies are  currently  used by a relatively small proportion of the 
population

Ravindra.here · Answer

I seriously don't understand why is this question in DEBATABLE OA category the question is clear cut and concise My analysis Conclusion : Demand for the services of travel agents will be drastically reduced Premise is that the with the use of internet most of the information that travel agents provide can readily be obtained by themselves Assumption Most Customers will organize the information they readily gather from the internet p.s. i am using MOST in my assumption because the conclusion is strong enough to use the word DRASTICALLY . We have to weaken the conclusion Clearly, if i go against the conclusion (( and my stated assumption)), what if customers are given so many options at their dispense that they are confused and therefore, are not able to organize their travel plans. Too many options create perplexity POE a) if both agents and customers are using internet , then this doesn't affects the conclusion. Maybe, customers may find better options , maybe agents. The issue is organizing b) this is the right choice. What if customer is bombarded with so many options that he is confused and perplexed . Therefore, after making so many or so less choices can't organize them accordingly c) its just a fact that used to happen in the past before the advent of large scores of information on Internet, and same is the case now. These people never affected the travel agent's salary before nor will they do now d) well again this is a gain from using travel agents services , so possibly not a weakner. e) May be confusing to some people, but consider this . the conclusion states that the income of travel agents will be affected drastically .So , a few can't create a drastic effect. Also , there is no mention that these few people really employ travel agents to book their travels. No effect

Naman_Agrawal · Answer

Bunuel  Source: GMATprep 3

Bunuel · Answer

_____________________
Added the tag. Thank you.

Vubar · Answer

The original question is incorrectly copied. Can you please insert the correct question in the OP?

"Travel agents are market intermediaries who make their living by gathering, organizing, and dispensing information about travel-related services that is not readily available to most consumers. Through new information technologies, such as the Internet, much of this information can now be made directly available to consumers. Therefore, as more consumers gain access to these new technologies, demand for the services of travel agents will be drastically reduced."

krittapat · Answer

egmat   GMATNinja   KarishmaB   mikemcgarry   MartyTargetTestPrep 
Could you please help explain this question in details?
I am not sure why option E is incorrect.
Thanks for your help.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

To understand why (E) doesn't work, let's review what the passage says.

The passage provides this support:  Through new information technologies, such as the internet, much of this information CAN now be made directly available to consumers.

Notice that the passage does not say that the information IS now available to consumers. It says that it CAN be made directly to consumers, implying that IN THE FUTURE consumers will have direct access to this information.

The the author then arrives at this conclusion:  Demand for the services of travel agents WILL be drastically reduced.

Once again, the author is talking about the future.

Now, let's consider choice (E).

(E) The internet and other new information technologies are currently used by a relatively small proportion of the population.

Notice that choice (E) is about the PRESENT.

So, choice (E) is about the current situation, whereas the argument is about what will happen in the future.

Common sense tells us that, as more information is made available in the future, more people will use the internet and other new information technologies to access that information. So, (E) doesn't weaken the argument since (E) describes how things are BEFORE the events predicted by the author the argument occur.

Now, let's consider choice (B).

(B) The amount of information available through the internet and other new information technologies is increasing faster than the capabilities of most consumers to process it.

We can see that what choice (B) describes will likely have an effect on the future use of the internet by consumers, hampering their use of the internet to get information. So, (B) provides reason to believe that there will still be demand for the services of travel agents in the future, thus weakening the argument.

Tanchat · Answer

Dear experts,  GMATNinja   AndrewN   IanStewart

D. The people who currently use the services of travel agents are also those most likely to gain access to new
information technologies

I'm not sure how I can interpret (D). It can mean either those people who are likely to gain access to new information tech will not use the travel agents and do research by themselves (this can strengthen) or those people still use the travel agents even they can access to new information tech (this can weaken).

Travel agents are market intermediaries who make their

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