Freewheeler: not so strong answer choice?

[GmatTP]

This question is from MGMAT CAT #2

Fedora Convertibles began selling the Freewheeler - its newest convertible sports car - in May of this year. Fedora sent out a press release last month indicating that the Freewheeler’s sales for May, June, July, and August totaled over 50,000. As a result, Fedora will in all likelihood easily meet its stated sales goal of 120,000 for Freewheeler's first year of release.

Which of the following would be most useful in order to evaluate this prediction?

1. Fedora is the market leader in this category of automobile.
2. Freewheeler is significantly more expensive than similar models produced by Fedora’s competitors.
3. Fedora released a similar model in May of the previous year.
4. Sales of similar models of cars are typically much higher in the summer months than at any other time of the year.
5. Freewheeler sales are important to meeting the sales goals of Fedora as a company.

The answer is "4".

A portion of the explanation for the answer says "the best way to evaluate the prediction will be to determine if this assumption about the relationship between May-August and the rest of the year is true."

How does "4" help us evaluate the relationship between summer months and rest of the year? It says
summer months > other months, but how does that help us figure out whether an additional 70000 cars
will be sold?.

The other answer choices are not contenders in any way, but I felt "4" was pretty weak too.

Thoughts?

[JonathanSchneider]

What you want to see in a case like this is that there is an underlying assumption. This assumption is that people buy these types of cars at a regular rate throughout the year. Of course, this is not necessarily true. For example, bite-sized candy sales skyrocket in October, due to Halloween. It may be the case that something similar is occuring with this kind of car. Are more people going to buy this kind of car during the summer, because it is nice out? If so, the company better sell a whole lot during the summer to meet its overall yearly goal.

[angadsalaria]

Reviving an old thread here.

Can one of the ManhattanGMAT Staff members explain to me the following.

Even if the sales are not as high in months other than summers, which is 50k/4 = 12500 cars per month, How can we safely conclude that the target sales figure of 120k would not be achieved in the round year cycle. Fedora only needs 70k/8 = 8750 car sales per month for rest of the months, which is lesser than the summer figure.

So how can we say option D) is the correct option here?

[jnelson0612]

Reviving an old thread here.

Can one of the ManhattanGMAT Staff members explain to me the following.

Even if the sales are not as high in months other than summers, which is 50k/4 = 12500 cars per month, How can we safely conclude that the target sales figure of 120k would not be achieved in the round year cycle. Fedora only needs 70k/8 = 8750 car sales per month for rest of the months, which is lesser than the summer figure.

So how can we say option D) is the correct option here?

We don't really know how the rest of the year will be. The car in question is a convertible; it may be that people only buy convertibles in the summer. Maybe the car will only sell 50K total units for the year as no one will buy this car from September through December. On the other hand, maybe people will continue to buy the car at the same rate the rest of the time. That is the information that we really need.

[I_need_a_700plus]

Why is choice C incorrect? the explanation states: "The fact that Fedora may or may not have released a similar model in May may be useful to make projections, but it does not influence the relationship between sales from May - August relative to other months."

If we know how a similar model performed the previous year, isn't that a strong indicator on whether Fedora will reach its sales goals this year? I would think that a similar model by Fedora has a higher correlation than a similar model by a competitor. i.e. if the iphone 5s is trying to predict if it will reach its 2013 sales goal, what would be a better indicator? the sales of the iphone 4 from 2012 or the current sales trend of Microsoft smartphone for 2013?

Both the iphone 4 and Microsoft smartphone are "similar" products, but the Microsoft phone can't be a better indicator than the Iphone 4. Right?

[RonPurewal]

If we know how a similar model performed the previous year, isn't that a strong indicator on whether Fedora will reach its sales goals this year?

... But we don't.
Hence, incorrect.