Until now, American cell-phone manufacturers enjoyed a large

Question

Until now, American cell-phone manufacturers enjoyed a large share of the cell-phone market in China. However, Chinese manufacturers are becoming more productive, selling increasingly greater shares of new phones on the Chinese market. Therefore, American companies will see a diminishing share of the profits stemming from cell-phone sales in China.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

(A) Very few cell phones manufactured in China will be exported for sale in the United States.
(B) There are still more cell phone users in the United States than China, despite the latter's greater population.
(C) American companies still claim large shares of sales in China of other electronic devices such as computers.
(D) Many American cell phones are considered to be of superior quality to those produced by Chinese manufacturers.
(E) Cell phones manufactured by Chinese companies use many imported electronic components.

MA · Answer

It should be E assuming the imports are from US..

HongHu · Answer

Sure E assumes that the Chinese cell phone component imports could be partly from US, which is a reasonable assumption to me. D on the other hand, do not counter the argument in the stem about less profit because of less market share argument, no matter how many assumptions you are going to have.

nocilis · Answer

I am of the opinion that this is just a badly designed GMAT question. The answer does not make too much sense to me even after thorough analysis.
I hope that ETS does not come up with such a question :madd

ywilfred · Answer

Isn't this too big an assumption. Nowhere in the argument are we told that the electronic components are coming from American. Neither are we told any future plans that the American companies might have (i.e. shifting their focus to electronic components export). Essentially, there is no problem with this argument, it's just the assumption we have to make in order for this statement to hold.

HongHu · Answer

It asks for weakening, the other choices do not do that. This argument however, you can start from here and argue away. You don't have to do lots of assumptions. As long as the possibility is there, it is sufficient. It didn't ask you to argue.

My experience is that this is not alone in this type of questions. It is likely that you'll see a question where the correct choice does not directly answer the questions, but only implies the possibility of answering the question, while the others do not answer the question at all.

For example, the sales tax school funding question. It says authorities decided to use sales tax instead of property tax to fund school. Although the sales tax is not enough currently, it is expected that the school funding may not decrease. The correct choice for this question is that a new mall is openning up and would bring in new sales revenues and new sales taxes. Again this choice do not tell you that the amount of tax increase will be sufficient for the school fund. However this one tells you that it has the potential to make that happen, while the others do not answer the question about why the funding level would not drop.

I can assure you that you'll see more of this type of questions. Once you know how to reason this type of questions, you'll get a big chunk of the CR questions out of the way.

aryan · Answer

Honghu: I'm still trying to analyze and think how to satisfy myself with the choice of E. Probably, these type of questions made the difference for my score :-)

My initial choice was D(I was wrong). Probably, it can also be argued that the Superior quality doesn't mean more sales to American companies. But whereas, the more components are imported by chinese companies the more they are expected to get market share. We need to have a complete paradigm shift for these type of CR questions. Aryan

greenandwise · Answer

I'm late on this one but I would say E....If American cell phones would see a diminishing share of profits the implication to me is that Chinese cell phones would see a higher share of profits. But if Chinese cell phones are made up of imported components that means that even though they are gaining a larger share of the cell phone market their profit margin might not be as high due to the cost of imported parts....I was extremely close to choosing D but I ruled it out because the argument hinges on consumer preference (i.e. "superior quality") and you know how fickle consumers can be....now I have to scroll down and see what everyone else wrote.

greenandwise · Answer

Guys I don't you think you have to assume that the parts came from the United States for this argument to actually be right.

HongHu · Answer

Your problem with this is that this is not a point for any further arguing. In the stem it clearly stated that the fact is Amercian companies' market share has been and is decreasing. The superior quality argument will not help because the fact is already given. The link you need to attack is why decreasing market share doesn't necessarily mean decreasing profit margin. You cannot attack the given fact and hope to change it. It is already established.

greenandwise · Answer

good point HongHu didn't think of that!

aryan · Answer

Thank you HongHu.
I take your point.

gmat2me2 · Answer

E is an assumption out of scope....I would go with D.

shahideh · Answer

Good explanation I chose D at first. I read lots of posts, and NOW I can understand why my answer was wrong

But I say again: To choose E, we have to assume that those components are imported from US

Until now, American cell-phone manufacturers enjoyed a large

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