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Adults who do not have young children often dislike buying medication in child-resistant bottles, and marketing surveys indicate that there is considerable demand for aspirin packaged in ordinary bottles, which do not have child-resistant tops. As a strategy for increasing overall sales of its brand of aspirin tablets, the Saber pharmaceutical company, which at present sells aspirin exclusively in bottles with child-resistant tops, is planning to start selling aspirin in ordinary bottles as well.
Which of the following would it be most useful to establish in order to evaluate whether the plan, if implemented, is likely to achieve the stated goal?
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| Adults who do not have young children often dislike buying medication in child-resistant bottles, and marketing surveys indicate that there is considerable demand for aspirin packaged in ordinary bottles, which do not have child-resistant tops. |
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| As a strategy for increasing overall sales of its brand of aspirin tablets, the Saber pharmaceutical company, which at present sells aspirin exclusively in bottles with child-resistant tops, is planning to start selling aspirin in ordinary bottles as well. |
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"The argument starts by establishing market demand (adults without kids want regular bottles), then presents Saber's current situation (only sells child-resistant bottles), and finally introduces their plan to meet this demand by adding regular bottles to increase overall sales."
"Saber's plan to start selling aspirin in ordinary bottles (in addition to child-resistant ones) will increase their overall sales."
"The premise about market demand for regular bottles supports the conclusion that adding regular bottles to Saber's product line will boost total sales. The logic assumes that meeting unmet customer demand will translate directly into increased sales volume."
Evaluate - We need to find what information would help us determine if Saber's plan to add regular bottles will actually increase their overall sales
The key claim is about 'increasing overall sales' - this is a quantitative outcome that depends on whether new customers gained from regular bottles will outweigh any potential losses
For evaluate questions, we need to think of assumptions underlying the plan and create scenarios that, when taken to extremes, would either strongly support or undermine the conclusion. We should focus on gaps in reasoning between the evidence (demand exists) and the conclusion (this will increase Saber's total sales)