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 Post subject: * Resolve The paradox
 Post Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 7:38 am 
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Students


Posts: 26
Construction contractors working on the cutting edge of technology nearly always work on a "cost-plus" basis only. One kind of cost-plus contract stipulates the contractor's profit as a fixed percentage of the contractor's costs; the other kind stipulates a fixed amount of profit over and above costs.Under the first kind of contract, higher costs yield higher profits for the contractor, so this is where one might expect final costs in excess of original cost estimates to be more common. Paradoxically, such cost overruns are actually more common if the contract is of the fixed-profit kind.

Which one of the following , if true, most helps to resolve the apparent paradox in the situation described above?

A) Clients are much less likely to agree to a fixed-profit type of cost plus contract when it is understood that under certain conditons the project will be scuttled than they are when there is no such understanding
B) On long-term contracts, cost projections take future inflation into account, but since the figures used are provided by the government,they are usually underestimates.
C) On any sizable construction project, the contractor bills the client monthly or quarterly, so any tendency for original cost estimates to be exceeded can be detected early.
D) Clients billed under a cost-plus contract are free to review individual billings in order to uncover wasteful expenditures, but they do so only when the contractor's profit varies with cost.
E) The practice of submitting deliberately exaggerated cost estimates is most common in the case of fixed-profit contracts because it makes the profit, as a percentage of estimated cost, appear modest.


OA is D...could not understand why...


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 Post subject: Re: Resolve The paradox
 Post Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:35 am 
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ManhattanGMAT Staff


Posts: 823
Please read (and follow!) the forum guidelines before posting. Problems listed in this folder should be from one of our Verbal Strategy Guides or Question Banks. If it's not from there, then please re-post in the correct folder. Otherwise, please list the Strategy Guide, Edition, and Page Number where you found the problem.

Also, it's helpful to indicate what you didn't understand about the problem.

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Ben Ku
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ManhattanGMAT


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