Q2 - Publishing executive: Our company must sell

[sophiepark]

Hello. Can anyone explain me why D is the right answer, please?
Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

Let's break down the core:

Conc:
It's unlikely we'll sell 100,000 books this year.

why?
Prem:
Of the 12 titles we sell, the best one is unlikely to sell as many as 100,000 copies.

This is a Flaw question, so we know the conclusion has NOT been proven. There is still a way to argue the opposite of the conclusion.

I normally structure my devil's advocate thinking like,
"If I accept the PREM(s), how can I argue the ANTI-CONC?"

Here that would be:
"If I accept that the best of the 12 books we're selling this year is unlikely to sell 100,000 copies, how can I argue that the company WILL still sell 100,000 books this year?"

Can you think of a way?



What if the best book only sells 50,000 copies, but the other 11 titles combined sell another 50,000 copies? That is consistent with the premise but still allows us to disprove the author's conclusion.

The author must be assuming that if the BEST seller isn't selling 100,000, then collectively all 12 titles aren't selling 100,000.

That seems like a screwy idea, though, doesn't it?

This is what (D) is expressing. The premise establishes that NONE of the 12 titles will INDIVIDUALLY sell 100,000 copies, but then goes on to conclude that COLLECTIVELY the 12 titles will not sell 100,000 copies.

=== other answers ===

Note: these answer choices are prefaced by "overlooks the possibility", which essentially acts like "which, if true, would WEAKEN"

(A) does this WEAKEN the author's argument? No, it would go along with it. The fewer copies of the novel that sell, the more likely the author is correct that we won't sell 100,000 books in total.

(B) Profit has nothing to do with the argument core. The conclusion is purely about whether we will or won't sell 100,000 books.

(C) This answer is describing a flawed argument that would sound like this:
Tripleday Books failed to make a profit last year. Therefore, Tripleday Books is not a profitable business.

(E) Similar to (A), this answer is bringing up something that threatens to make us sell even fewer books. The fewer books we sell, the more likely the author's conclusion comes true, so this doesn't come close to weakening the author's conclusion.

Again, (D) allows us to make this rebuttal, "Just because no individual title will sell 100,000 copies doesn't mean that the group of 12 titles will fail to sell 100,000 copies!"

Hope this helps.