Examkin

Question

Difficulty: MediumNecessary Assumption

Retail Analyst: To combat declining profits, several bookstore chains introduced gourmet cafes and seating areas. Consequently, the average time customers spend in these stores has increased significantly. However, during the same period, overall book sales revenue at these chains has continued to decrease. Therefore, the introduction of cafes and seating has failed to help stimulate book sales.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the retail analyst's argument?

  1. A
    Any retail strategy that is followed by a continued decrease in overall sales revenue has failed to help stimulate sales.
  2. B
    Customers who visit the gourmet cafes spend less money on books than customers who do not visit the cafes.
  3. C
    The presence of gourmet cafes and seating is the primary cause of the recent decrease in book sales revenue.
  4. The decline in book sales revenue would not have been even greater if the bookstore chains had not introduced the cafes and seating areas.Answer
  5. E
    Bookstores that did not introduce cafes and seating did not experience a decrease in their book sales revenue during this same period.

Answer

The correct answer is the option stating that the decline in book sales revenue would not have been even greater if the bookstore chains had not introduced the cafes and seating areas.
This option acts as a 'defender' assumption. For the analyst to conclude that the strategy completely failed to help, they must assume it didn't prevent an even worse outcome. If we negate this statement—assuming that sales WOULD have decreased even more had the cafes not been built—then the cafes actually did help maintain sales relative to the baseline. Because negating this option destroys the analyst's conclusion, it is a logically necessary assumption.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the main conclusion of the argument.
The conclusion is the final sentence: the introduction of cafes and seating has failed to help stimulate book sales.
Pinpointing the exact conclusion is required to determine what unstated premise is necessary to support it.
2
Identify the premises supporting the conclusion.
The premises are that customer visit duration has increased, but overall book sales revenue has continued to decrease during the exact same period.
Separating the provided evidence from the conclusion reveals the logical gap.
3
Apply the Negation Technique to test potential necessary assumptions.
Negating the correct option results in: 'The decline WOULD have been even greater if the chains had not introduced the cafes.' If this is true, the cafes DID help mitigate the decline, which destroys the author's conclusion.
The Negation Technique is the most reliable method for proving whether an assumption is logically required for the argument to hold.

Key Concept

Necessary Assumption (Defender Strategy)
Rate this question

Topics

Necessary Assumption

More questions from this topic