A recent study by Dealson on the shopping habits

Question

A recent study by Dealson on the shopping habits of Indians revealed that word-of-mouth is a key source of awareness for 38% of Indian shoppers. Also, one in every three shoppers goes online to get information before making a purchase. As word-of-mouth recommendations can’t be influenced by companies directly, currently it makes sense for them to focus most of their energies on increasing their online presence in order to boost awareness of their products.

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

A. The study by Dealson was limited only to studying shopping behaviour, and not the entire process of product usage by consumers.
B. Newspaper advertisements were another major source of awareness for a lot of people.
C. A significant number of people don’t have access to internet in India.
D. Not all companies need awareness among end consumers; a lot of them make products which are utilized by other businesses as raw material.
E. Several consulting firms are working on a way to more directly influence word-of-mouth recommendations as well.

Source: Self created

Regards
Prashant

aditya8062 · Answer

option B can never be the answer here :
B says : Newspaper advertisements  were  another major source of awareness for a lot of people
 ----------->implies that newspaper are no more major source of awareness .so effectively it does not weaken the argument !!

also the argument is contending to direct  "most of their energies"  . "most "  does not mean  "all"  
also even if option B would have been "Newspaper advertisements  are  another major source of awareness for a lot of people" then also it would not have weakened the argument for the reason that i have mentioned above !! .please understand that GMAC is very particular about its argument of  "most"  versus  "all"

ashishmehta89 · Answer

Please Explain How can B be the answer.

To me 'C' seems a much better choice, if not a lot of people have internet access then the strategy of Dealson will fail.

semwal · Answer

Source: Self created.. THE SOURCE FOR THIS QUESTION HAS BEEN GIVEN AS " SELF CREATED"......
 What does SELF CREATED mean ? lets not waste others time by generating questions not researched.....i have earlier also seen lot of questions from "prashantpareek" - which are SELF CREATED and presumably not researched ( for example by a recognized GMAT Coaching firm). when one starts solving these questions and finds nothing to DERIVE/ LEARN out of the effort...it unnecessarily wastes time......the argument/answers in such questions defy logic..... 
I dont know if other serious students feel the same.......

prashantpareek · Answer

The saying, newspaper ads  were  a major source of awareness, doesn't mean they are no longer a major source. It effectively doesn't tell us anything about the present. They might or might not be a major source at present. But option B does present a  possibility  that newspapers  are  a major source of awareness.

Let's look at the facts we have.

1. Word of mouth is a  key  source of awareness for 38% of shoppers. This can't be directly influenced by companies.
2. 33% of shoppers get information online. This can be influenced by companies.

But statement 2 says that 'online' is just a source, not necessarily the key source for 33% of people. This means that 'online' can be an additional source for some people whose primary or key source is something else.

If there is a possibility that there is another key source of awareness for more than 33% of people, companies should direct most of their energies toward that source, and not online. B presents that possibility. It tells us that newspaper ads were another major source of awareness for a lot of people. It's possible that the proportion of people for whom it was the major source, is more than 33%. Therefore, it weakens the argument.

Most doesn't mean all. Most, when describing a proportion, just means more than 50%, i.e. the majority.
E.g. the statement, "Most of this batch of students haven't prepared for GMAT" means that more than 50% of them haven't prepared for the exam.

Keeping that in mind, let's look at the statement - "It makes sense for them to focus most of their energies on increasing their online presence."

Companies should obviously direct a majority of their energies toward the biggest source of awareness. And if there is a bigger source of awareness than 'online' (as indicated by option B), companies should direct most of energies there. Then this conclusion is weakened.

Now let's come to option statement C. It says that - "A significant number of people don’t have access to internet in India."

But this doesn't give us any new information which affects the conclusion. We already know that one in every three shoppers goes online to get information before making a purchase. Option C doesn't affect that number. It might be a  reason  why the number of people who go online to get information before making a purchase is only 33% of the total shoppers, but it doesn't tell us why companies shouldn't focus most of their energies on increasing their online presence. Hence, it's not the right answer choice.

aditya8062 · Answer

dear this is not how the linguistics work in GMAT !!

also u are missing the logic of the argument as i have stated above 
the argument is never talking of directing  "all"  of their energies .its just saying to direct the  "majority"  of its energies . so it does not matter even if we have a newspaper as another major source of awareness .think of a situation we have  90/10 ratio  of online /newspaper coverage .even in that situation after "online" thing we have "newspaper" as another major source of awareness but does it  hinder  from directing "majority" of our resources to online advertisements ? the answer is NO !!

Griffins · Answer

Correct answer will be option B, since it introduces another source other than mouth-of-word, that brings awareness among indian shoppers, i.e. newspaper advertisement. Therefore weakens the argument.

sayansarkar · Answer

answer c may be wrong because:
if out of 1000 people 499 have internet access and the rest dont have and out of these 499 only 100 go to buy a product after searching online then there is a scope of increasing the number to 499 from 100. hance c misses out on this. B it is

Lucky2783 · Answer

C is surely out , as the stem says 1 out of 3 visits website, so we already know 66% are not visiting website for one of the reason (no internet avaiable to them or they just do not visit website for deciding ) .

VerbalBot · Answer

Automated notice from GMAT Club VerbalBot: 

A member just gave Kudos to this thread, showing it’s still useful. I’ve bumped it to the top so more people can benefit. Feel free to add your own questions or solutions.

 This post was generated automatically.

A recent study by Dealson on the shopping habits

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

A recent study by Dealson on the shopping habits

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards