V31-09

Official Solution:

The leading manufacturer of bottled sauces has announced that it intends to introduce a new line of sauces that will be condensed by a factor of three to one. The condensed sauces will be marketed as pro-environment since the manufacturer will be able to reduce the amount of packaging required for an equivalent amount of non-condensed sauce. The manufacturer also claims that it will also be able to reduce the amount of packaging required to ship the sauce, and correspondingly reduce the energy consumed to transport the sauce to supermarkets since the condensed sauces will be lighter per unit. Many market analysts believe that the new condensed sauces could become more popular than the older, non-condensed sauces.

Which one of the following, if true, most strongly supports the prediction made by the market analysts?

A. Consumers, in general, are guided by environmental considerations when making a purchase decision about a sauce.
B. Supermarkets will give the condensed sauces the same degree of visibility on shelves as they do the traditional, non-condensed sauces.
C. Some analysts estimate that consumers of the condensed sauces may end up paying more per unit of sauce consumed than they would have for non-condensed sauces.
D. Consumer research shows that consumers might be initially reluctant to purchase the condensed sauces.
E. Other sauce manufacturers are unlikely to respond with their own condensed sauces any time soon.

Type: Strengthen

Boil It Down: Condensed better for environment -> Become more popular

Missing Information: Environmental concerns matter.

Goal: Just because the condensed soup's offer some benefits particularly those to the environment, doesn't automatically mean that consumers will be aware of those benefits. Even if they were aware of the benefits, do we know that consumers would actually act on that awareness? The analysts are completely assuming that consumers care. Maybe they don't.

A. Yes! This is the missing piece of information that we needed. The analysts' prediction requires the information that consumers are guided by environmental considerations when making a purchase decision about a sauce. This option dramatically improves the likelihood of the analyst's prediction.

B. Having the same degree of visibility on the shelves isn't necessarily something that the analysts' reasoning needs. Maybe consumers would be so attracted to the idea of helping the environment that they would eat be willing to look on the shelf above or below where the other sauces were.

C. This option has a couple of problems 1) The option presumes that "some" is relevant. Who are these analysts who says that these some are relevant? Maybe they are. Maybe they're not. It's not clear. Additionally, the word "some" is extremely ambiguous. "Some" could literally mean only 1% of the analyst community, which might show that what the "some" think is likely irrelevant. On the GMAT, we always need to be very skeptical about relative comparison words such as "some", "most", "many" etc. These options can still be right, but people tend to make assumptions about what these words mean, and the GMAT has distracter options with these words to filter out those who make unwarranted assumptions about these words. 2) It's also unclear whether consumers would be willing to pay more for the condensed soups or not. Maybe typical consumers have such a willingness to help the environment that they would gladly pay a little bit more overall to help boost the cause.

D. It's not clear what impact this option would ultimately have on the analyst's prediction. In fact, even if there were a reticence on the part of consumers, this option makes it appear that that such reservations would only be near-term.

E. Whether other sauce manufacturers respond is totally irrelevant to the analysts' prediction. Maybe this company's product will become so popular that it takes over a predominant market share, and thus the analysts could still be proven right. Additionally, just like option D, option E is phrased to be perhaps only a temporary matter because it states that these companies might be unlikely to respond ANY TIME SOON.



Answer: A