cigarette smokers.

[Orange08]

Surveys show that every year only 10 percent of cigarette smokers switch brands. Yet the manufacturers have been spending an amount equal to 10 percent of their gross receipts on cigarette promotion in magazines. It follows from these figures that inducing cigarette smokers to switch brands did not pay, and that cigarette companies would have been no worse off economically if they had dropped their advertising.

Of the following, the best criticism of the conclusion that inducing cigarette smokers to switch brands did not pay is that the conclusion is based on

(A) computing advertising costs as a percentage of gross receipts, not of overall costs

(B) past patterns of smoking and may not carry over to the future

© the assumption that each smoker is loyal to a single brand of cigarettes at any one time

(D) the assumption that each manufacturer produces only one brand of cigarettes

(E) figures for the cigarette industry as a whole and may not hold for a particular company

[modusoperandi]

D ?

if a manufacturer produces multiple brands then switching brands could have helped

[tablesalt]

I would say E.

[MarsAlien]

Imo C

[Aqueel]

Good one. Three posts and three different answers.

I would go with E.

[gmatgoal]

What is the OA?

[anilmanu]

I don't think we'll get the OA for this..

This is an old question..

 

IMO, D

[rawjosh]

OA seems to be E.

 

http://www.www.urch.com/forums/gmat-critical-reasoning/27853-tough-one-cigarette-smokers-switching-brands.html

[ontheway]

Surveys show that every year only 10 percent of cigarette smokers switch brands. Yet the manufacturers have been spending an amount equal to 10 percent of their gross receipts on cigarette promotion in magazines. It follows from these figures that inducing cigarette smokers to switch brands did not pay, and that cigarette companies would have been no worse off economically if they had dropped their advertising.

Of the following, the best criticism of the conclusion that inducing cigarette smokers to switch brands did not pay is that the conclusion is based on

(A) computing advertising costs as a percentage of gross receipts, not of overall costs

(B) past patterns of smoking and may not carry over to the future

© the assumption that each smoker is loyal to a single brand of cigarettes at any one time

(D) the assumption that each manufacturer produces only one brand of cigarettes

(E) figures for the cigarette industry as a whole and may not hold for a particular company

 

First thing to note - conclusion is about cigarette companies and not about any specific company. Stimulus is talking about the industry and not about any specific company.

 

A - Does not make a difference

 

B - "may not" is dangerous, companies can not rely on any information that is not strong enough to make investment decision

 

C - "Surveys show that every year only 10 percent of cigarette smokers switch brands." Does not matter if smoker is loyal to one or many brands, what important is how many of them change their brands. One smoker may be loyal to 3 brands and never changes to any other brand.

 

D - If manufacturer produces more than one brand, he has to invest money in advertisment not to loose customers (out of 10% switching brands) to any other manufacturers brand. Therefore one manufacturer can still retain its customer while customer is switching brand. Therefore with this investment manufacturer can win new customers (those were loyal to other manufacturer) as well as retain existing customers who were prone to switch to another manufacturer because existing customers can switch to another brand of same manufacturer.

 

E - Conslusion is not at all about any specific company. All the premises and conclusion have industry wide information. If conclusion have stated "every cigarette company" instead of "cigarette companies" , this options would have been a viable one.

 

Therefore my take is D.