Company X conducted a taste test

[gtr02@aim.com]

Company X conducted a taste test to determine whether its new soft drink had a good chance of commercial success. A sample of consumers was asked to compare the flavor of the new soft drink to that of an established brand without knowing the true identity of either beverage. Overwhelmingly, the consumers preferred the taste of the proposed soft drink to that of the established brand. Clearly, Company X has a good chance of commercial success with its new soft drink.

Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the argument above?
A) Some of the consumers in the taste test preferred the flavor of the established brand.
B) The other soft drink used in the taste test is also manufactured by Company X.
C) The new soft drink will cost more than three times as much as any other soft drink on the market.
D) Company X has not yet designed a label for the new soft drink.
E) The name of the new soft drink is very close to that of the established brand.

I narrowed it down to (C) & (E)
(C), i don't get how the cost of the drink will affect chance of commercial success? unless the price was advertised in the commercial? :-)
(E) so if the name is very close to that of the established brand, then people will just think its a similar drink (which can impact the chance of commercial success)?

[jnelson0612]

What is the original answer?

[gtr02@aim.com]

What is the original answer?

my bad, OA is C

[tim]

you've misinterpreted the phrase "commercial success". this doesn't mean that the commercials will be successful, but that the product will be successful in commerce. and of course the price of a product definitely affects its commercial success!

[vishalsomani]

Hi,

Doesn't the last line of the passage:

" Clearly, Company X has a good chance of commercial success with its new soft drink. "

says about commercial success of 'Company X' as whole instead of the product.

The above reasoning took me to option 'B'.

Please clarify the view point for me. Thanks.

[jnelson0612]

Hi,

Doesn't the last line of the passage:

" Clearly, Company X has a good chance of commercial success with its new soft drink. "

says about commercial success of 'Company X' as whole instead of the product.

The above reasoning took me to option 'B'.

Please clarify the view point for me. Thanks.

The phrase "with its new soft drink" indicates that the commercial success will result from the introduction of this new soft drink. If this phrase were absent then I could agree with your point.

[vishalsomani]

Thank you Jamie. I got the point.

Also, while going through the problem again, I happen to read the very first line of the stimuli with much more concentration this time.
It says:
"Company X conducted a taste test to determine whether its new soft drink had a good chance of commercial success."

Clearly, the subject or the focus of stimuli is on the commercial success of its new soft drink rather than on the Company X itself.

Thank you very much Jamie!

[tim]

:)

[hariharasudhan.at]

"C) The new soft drink will cost more than three times as much as any other soft drink on the market".

There are drinks in the market that cost many times costlier than the average range of drinks . Eg -Energy drinks. This doesn't deter its chance of success.

Is it superfluous to think in this line.

Please help.

[jnelson0612]

We have to look for a reason that tells us why the new soft drink may not be a success even though people prefer its taste to the taste of other soft drinks. Knowing that it is three times as expensive is a pretty strong reason why the drink may fail to sell very much even though people like the taste.

Let me ask you this . . . can you find a better answer that weakens the idea that the drink will sell well? Sometimes we have to go with the best answer even if we don't love it.

[nikhil.baveja]

Hi
I still somehow disagree with this answer.
here is the structure of the argument

Premise : Company X conducted a taste test to determine whether its new soft drink had a good chance of commercial success. A sample of consumers was asked to compare the flavor of the new soft drink to that of an established brand without knowing the true identity of either beverage. Overwhelmingly, the consumers preferred the taste of the proposed soft drink to that of the established brand

Conclusion: Clearly, Company X has a good chance of commercial success with its new soft drink

To be frank I was looking for answer somewhere on these lines:
a flaw in the method of testing or an argument that can somehow undermine the capacity of sample size tested.
but I guess thats fine, so I moved on reading all the answer choices.
I do agree that answer choice C gives us a reason that why the soft-drink might not sell well and leads to failure commercially for the company. But its nowhere mentioned in the premise that the consumers mind spending or don't want to spend for the quality taste.
what if money is not the criteria for disqualification?
having said that if I have to choose I will go for option B
think of it there are various example where a company introduce a product similar to already existing product and eventually the sales from old product dries up which was once a popular selling product.
the sales of new product now reflect the sale from old product client-age too. so overall it might not be such a great commercial success to the company.
I do agree that this is not a perfect answer but I will still choose this over the C given that there is no stimulus that states money is a criteria for choosing the product.
what if the product is launched in developed market where ppl prefer quality over money?

Can someone point out the error in my thinking.?

Company X conducted a taste test to determine whether its new soft drink had a good chance of commercial success. A sample of consumers was asked to compare the flavor of the new soft drink to that of an established brand without knowing the true identity of either beverage. Overwhelmingly, the consumers preferred the taste of the proposed soft drink to that of the established brand. Clearly, Company X has a good chance of commercial success with its new soft drink.

Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the argument above?
A) Some of the consumers in the taste test preferred the flavor of the established brand.
B) The other soft drink used in the taste test is also manufactured by Company X.
C) The new soft drink will cost more than three times as much as any other soft drink on the market.
D) Company X has not yet designed a label for the new soft drink.
E) The name of the new soft drink is very close to that of the established brand.

I narrowed it down to (C) & (E)
(C), i don't get how the cost of the drink will affect chance of commercial success? unless the price was advertised in the commercial? :-)
(E) so if the name is very close to that of the established brand, then people will just think its a similar drink (which can impact the chance of commercial success)?

[krishnan.anju1987]

Hi
I still somehow disagree with this answer.
here is the structure of the argument

Premise : Company X conducted a taste test to determine whether its new soft drink had a good chance of commercial success. A sample of consumers was asked to compare the flavor of the new soft drink to that of an established brand without knowing the true identity of either beverage. Overwhelmingly, the consumers preferred the taste of the proposed soft drink to that of the established brand

Conclusion: Clearly, Company X has a good chance of commercial success with its new soft drink

To be frank I was looking for answer somewhere on these lines:
a flaw in the method of testing or an argument that can somehow undermine the capacity of sample size tested.
but I guess thats fine, so I moved on reading all the answer choices.
I do agree that answer choice C gives us a reason that why the soft-drink might not sell well and leads to failure commercially for the company. But its nowhere mentioned in the premise that the consumers mind spending or don't want to spend for the quality taste.
what if money is not the criteria for disqualification?
having said that if I have to choose I will go for option B
think of it there are various example where a company introduce a product similar to already existing product and eventually the sales from old product dries up which was once a popular selling product.
the sales of new product now reflect the sale from old product client-age too. so overall it might not be such a great commercial success to the company.
I do agree that this is not a perfect answer but I will still choose this over the C given that there is no stimulus that states money is a criteria for choosing the product.
what if the product is launched in developed market where ppl prefer quality over money?

Can someone point out the error in my thinking.?

Company X conducted a taste test to determine whether its new soft drink had a good chance of commercial success. A sample of consumers was asked to compare the flavor of the new soft drink to that of an established brand without knowing the true identity of either beverage. Overwhelmingly, the consumers preferred the taste of the proposed soft drink to that of the established brand. Clearly, Company X has a good chance of commercial success with its new soft drink.

Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the argument above?
A) Some of the consumers in the taste test preferred the flavor of the established brand.
B) The other soft drink used in the taste test is also manufactured by Company X.
C) The new soft drink will cost more than three times as much as any other soft drink on the market.
D) Company X has not yet designed a label for the new soft drink.
E) The name of the new soft drink is very close to that of the established brand.

I narrowed it down to (C) & (E)
(C), i don't get how the cost of the drink will affect chance of commercial success? unless the price was advertised in the commercial? :-)
(E) so if the name is very close to that of the established brand, then people will just think its a similar drink (which can impact the chance of commercial success)?

Hi,

Here are my two cents. Hope it helps.

I see here that you are able to make sense out of option C. The rule is here to choose the best case among the five options that might strengthen or weaken the issue at hand. There would be assumptions in most cases but the key is to pick the option with the most plausible assumption. C talks about price and a good part of the population of any country would be concerned with paying more money for a similar product. Hence, C makes sense. On the other hand Taking B into consideration, it states that the other soft drink which was used in the taste test was from the same manufacturer. True the manufacturer might use the new line to entirely replace the existing line of soft drink established by his company but that does not concern us. Our concern is whether the the fact that the other product was also manufactured by the same manufacturer causes the test takers in some way to prefer the new drink which would cast some doubt on the validity of the test. Since, the people who tasted the drinks were unaware of the brands or the products they were tasting this does not cast any doubts on the test. One of the premises that could cast doubts on the validity of the test would be if the other control used in the test was a failed product in the market but this has not been stated anywhere in this option.

Hope I make sense.

[jnelson0612]

Nice discussion, everyone. Please let us know if anyone needs more help with this.

[tanibansal]

Please explain why E can't weaken.
I thought if majority is giving more preference to taste then price might be immaterial.

[jnelson0612]

Please explain why E can't weaken.
I thought if majority is giving more preference to taste then price might be immaterial.

E says that the name of the new drink is similar to the name of the established drink. Can you tell me more about how you think that would weaken? What you wrote up above doesn't address this.