Baxe Interiors, one of the largest interior design companies in existence, currently has a near monopoly in the corpo...

Mehran on July 3, 2018

Hi @CMess, thanks for your post.

Let's first start with an assessment of the stimulus. This stimulus presents a set of facts rather than an argument with a conclusion. What do we know, based on the stimulus?
- Baxe is one of the largest interior design companies in existence
- Baxe currently has a near monopoly in the corporate market
- Several small design companies have won prestigious awards for their corporate work
- Baxe has no such awards
- But corporate managers who solicit design proposals will only contract with companies they believe are unlikely to go bankrupt, and
- And corporate managers believe that only very large companies are unlikely to go bankrupt.

OK. The question stem asks you to identify the answer choice that is most strongly supported by the info you are given in the stimulus.

Let's look at each choice.
(A) - we know nothing about "other very large design companies besides Baxe," so we can eliminate this answer. It is not supported by the information provided in the stimulus, which is the criteria for the right answer here.

(B) - we do not know anything about whether Baxe has a near monopoly in any other category of interior design besides corporate interiors. Maybe, maybe not.

(C) - this is an overgeneralization that is not supported by the information given in the stimulus. All we know from the stimulus is that several small design companies have won awards for their corporate interior designs, and that Baxe has not. We do not know that "for the most part" designs by small companies are "superior" to Baxe's. Notice that (C) does not even specify "interior design"! It's too broad.

(D) - there is no textual support for this claim. We know nothing about what the corporate managers know.

(E) - this is the correct answer. The stimulus indicates that there are interior designs judged to be superior to those produced by Baxe (we know this because of the "prestigious awards" given to small companies and the fact that Baxe has no such awards). And we also know that this fact "does not currently threaten [Baxe's] near monopoly in the corporate market," because we are told that corporate managers gravitate toward large companies because they think these companies are unlikely to go bankrupt.

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any additional questions.