PrepTest 151, Section 2, Question 9
Last year, pharmaceutical manufacturers significantly increased the amount(62 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(6 more words not shown)
- AMost pharmaceutical manufacturers(19 more words not shown)
- BPhysicians who receive(15 more words not shown)
- CMost pharmaceutical companies(17 more words not shown)
- DMost physicians who(21 more words not shown)
- EThe more visits(23 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Fewer visits per representative doesn't necessarily mean fewer visits.
Picture ten representatives each making 640 visits. That is 6,400 visits altogether. Now picture a hundred representatives each making 501 visits. The average has fallen, but the total is 50,100 visits. Those are hypothetical staff sizes, not facts we were given. They show why the average alone can't tell us how much contact the companies are having with physicians.
What we’re looking for
The author goes further still, saying physicians must have become less willing to receive visits. For a weakener, I'd question that explanation: perhaps the companies spent the extra money hiring more representatives, spreading the visits among more people. The representatives could each make fewer visits without physicians becoming less receptive.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The companies increased their sales forces and wanted representatives to spend more time with each physician. That offers an explanation for fewer visits per representative other than physicians refusing them: more staff can share the visits, and longer visits can take up more of each representative's time. A doesn't establish the exact new total or prove receptiveness stayed constant. It undercuts the claim that the lower average must mean the promotion backfired.
- B
Accepting samples during a visit doesn't establish how willing physicians are to receive visits in the first place, or whether that willingness changed. The physicians who still agree to meet could accept samples even if others became less receptive. B concerns what happens within accepted visits.
- C
Spending on advertisements aimed directly at consumers is a different promotional channel. Leaving that spending unchanged doesn't explain the decrease in office visits per representative or show that physicians remained receptive. The argument's inference comes from the office-visit figures.
- D
This describes physicians who agree to a visit. Their willingness to see the same representative again doesn't tell us how many other physicians decline visits or whether the overall willingness to meet has fallen. Repeat visits among willing physicians could coexist with the author's proposed change.
- E
More prescriptions after more visits could explain why companies value those visits. It doesn't explain why visits per representative fell or show that physicians are willing to receive them. The effectiveness of a visit once it happens is different from receptiveness to having the visit.
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