PrepTest 156, Section 4, Question 5
Gahagan's Greenstore sells a large volume of plants.(29 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AGahagan's makes a(16 more words not shown)
- BMost of those(14 more words not shown)
- CThere are more(9 more words not shown)
- DGahagan's sells a(7 more words not shown)
- EA plant purchased(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Keep the plants separate from the tools.
Gahagan's sells a large volume of plants, and the vast majority go wholesale to commercial buyers. Most of those plants go to landscape contractors: businesses that do people's landscaping rather than people buying a few plants for their own yards. The tools have a different sales pattern. Most gardening implements, such as shovels and rakes, go retail to home gardeners.
What we’re looking for
There isn't an argument here to attack. We're asked what these sales facts most strongly support. I want to stay with the relationships actually given. Selling a lot of plants doesn't yet tell us the profit, the number of different customers, or everything those customers have ever bought.
Working the answers
- A
We don't know the profit on plants or on anything else. 'A large volume' doesn't compare plant sales with sales of the other products, and volume alone doesn't tell us the costs or profit margins. The tools could produce much more profit even if the store sells plenty of plants. A requires financial information we never received.
- B
Why couldn't a contractor have bought a shovel on the first visit and then bought only plants on later visits? A durable tool doesn't need to be purchased every time the contractor needs more plants. Knowing that most tools go to home gardeners doesn't establish that most regular wholesale customers have never bought one.
- C
The number of plants sold isn't the number of customers buying them. A small group of contractors could buy enormous quantities, while many home gardeners buy a little each. We also haven't been told who shops regularly or how often. C turns a sales pattern into a claim about customer counts without the information needed.
- D
That could happen, but we aren't told it happens. Most gardening implements going to home gardeners doesn't identify who buys any remaining tools, or even establish that some tools must go to another group. We can't supply landscape contractors as the other buyers just because that would make sense for a store like this.
- ECorrect
The vast bulk of the plants go to commercial buyers, and most of that bulk goes to landscape contractors. That strongly favors a contractor over a home gardener as the purchaser of a plant selected from the store's sales. E stays with the plant-sales pattern we were given. It doesn't turn that pattern into a claim about profits, customer counts, or tool purchases.
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