Kitchen magazine plans to license the use of its name by a line of cookware. For a magazine, licensing the use of its name for products involves some danger, since if the products disappoint consumers, the magazine's reputation suffers, with consequent reductions in circulation and advertising. However, experts have evaluated the cookware and found it superior to all other cookware advertised in Kitchen. Therefore, Kitchen can collect its licensing fee without endangering its other revenues.
The argument above assumes which of the following?
A. No other line of cookware is superior to that which will carry the Kitchen name.
B. Kitchen will not license the use of its name for any products other than the line of cookware.
C. Makers of cookware will not find Kitchen a less attractive advertising vehicle because the magazine's name is associated with a competing product.
D. Consumers who are not regular readers of Kitchen magazine will be attracted to the cookware by the Kitchen name.
E. Kitchen is one of the most prestigious cooking-related magazines.


Need some help in answering this CR. Tutors please analyze this argument.
The only hint I could get was - Conclusion talks about "collecting fees without hampering revenues". And a negation test on option C - weakens the conclusion. However, I am still not clear about other options.

the answer should be option A.This is as per the assumption rule"Assumptions can eliminate the other possibilities of causation"

Let me try..
A: Doesnt matter even if some other cookware is superior to the one using kitchen's name. In fact I see a scope shift "other line of cook ware" vs "other line of cookware advertised in kitchen". Eliminate.
B: Again who cares.. if it does lic to brand of shaving cream as long as it can get revenues. It may or may not work. So this is not an assumption. Eliminate.

C: Well now if C is true, then then the other makers of cookware who have till now advertised in kitchen might stop advertising in Kitchen. This could lead to loss of revenue.So C could be the answer.

D: What if this is not true.... no harm done. u will not increase revenue but u may/maynot lose revenue.. Eliminate.

E: Who cares is kitchen is not the most prestigeous mag.. Eliminate.

So C is my answer.

feedback welcome.
-V

this is a perfect analysis. the answer should indeed be (c), for the reasons cited.

As per C

C. Makers of cookware will not find Kitchen a less attractive advertising vehicle because the magazine's name is associated with a competing product.

for some reason i did not understand the below -


I did not understand meaning vey well. Hence can some one please confirm my understanding ? Here is what i think is the meaning -

The makers of cookware will continue to advertise in the magazine. So if advertisers continue to advertise, there will be no lose in revenue.

Actually, think about it this way.

Kitchen currently gets revenue from magazine sales and advertisers. Kitchen is planning to start receiving a third stream of revenue by putting the Kitchen name on cookware. Because the cookware is good, Kitchen will not suffer from a decreased reputation and will continue to make as much money as before.

What do we have to assume? That putting Kitchen's name on cookware will not have some sort of unintended effect that will reduce revenue overall.

C says that advertisers of OTHER cookware brands (who will now be competing with the Kitchen brand) may not want to advertise in Kitchen magazine anymore since Kitchen is now a competitor. If Kitchen loses this advertising revenue that would hurt the revenue stream and certainly make the conclusion wrong. Thus, we have to ASSUME that this will not happen if Kitchen begins to put its name on cookware.

_________________
Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor

Thank you Manhantan experts.

the following is my thought process

- read question stem: Assumption
- read argument and paraphrase: superior can create profit
- prephrase answer: superiou dose not dissapoint customers.
- go to answer choices
read a,b,c,d,e, there is no match.
I use negation. find C

The problem on which I wish you to comment is that normally prephrasing the answer can help us find the answer before going to answer choices. This job help us a lot. but In this case, prephrasing dose not help a lot. But most experts advise us to prephrase. What is the strategy with this kind of question?

The question is that how do you do if there is no match between prephrased answer and one of the answer choices.

pls, advise, comment.

I aggree that prephrase is alway good because it help us understand the argument properly, a thing important to success on CR.

(normally, prephrasing is good when the correct answer is based on a supporter assumption. if the answer is based on a defender assumption, we can hardly prephrase. but forget this thing. the concept of defender and supporter dose not help us on gmat. )

thanghnvn, there are a lot of words in your post, but it seems that your question is “should i try to predict the assumption in an assumption question?”

if that's actually your question, then the answer is “you may as well try”.
in other words, you can't really lose by predicting an assumption; one of two things will happen:
1/ your predicted assumption will actually be the assumption that appears in the correct answer choice, in which case you win;
2/ your predicted assumption isn't one of the answer choices, in which case you are simply in the same situation in which you found yourself at the start.

if you predict a valid assumption, then it's definitely not going to be one of the wrong answer choices -- because, if it were in the answer choices, it would be correct. so there's no harm in trying.