At the end of the year, Wilson's Department Store awards free merchandise to its top salespeople. When presented with...

zachmorley2 on October 22, 2020

Yes, could someone please address this. The passage's wording is puzzling.

jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com on October 24, 2020

Hi

I am not an instructor and I also got this question wrong the first time but now as I revisit this question I understand why the correct answer is correct and why my initial response D is wrong.
This is an argument so we can break it down into premises and conclusion.
Premise 1: At the end of the year, Wilson's Department Store awards free merchandise to its top salespeople
Premise 2: The number of salespeople receiving these awards has declined markedly over the past fifteen years
Premise 3: Wilson’s Department Store award criterion at present is membership in the top third of our sales force

Conclusion: the number of salespeople passed over (ignored) for these awards has declined

Basically this argument is presenting a situation where the overall number of salespeople in Wilson’s Department store has decreased because the number of salespeople in the top third sales force who are receiving the sales award has decreased and that led to the conclusion that the number of salespeople passed over (ignored) for the top third sales award has also decreased. For this argument to be valid, we must assume that the criterion used by Wilson’s Department store for selecting the top third sales force award has remained essentially unchanged, thus leading us to conclude that the number of salespeople passed over (ignored) for award has decreased based on the premise that the number of salespeople receiving the award has decreased.

If the criterion for selecting the award has changed dramatically, then it could be the case that the reason the number of salespeople receiving the award has decreased for the past fifteen years is due to stricter award selection criterion rather than the overall population (and thus number of salespeople not receiving the award) of salespeople decreasing.

I hope that I explained it right. I initially chose D but D is wrong because the average total sales figures for Wilson's salespeople have no bearings on the award selection which is based on a percentage of total salespeople, namely the top third percent. Also the argument relates to the number of salespeople receiving or not receiving (passed over) for award, not the total sales figure for Wilson’s Department store salespeople. Thus D, which is about the average total sales figure for all salespeople at Wilson’s, is irrelevant and not necessary for the conclusion to stand.

Thank you very much and please feel free to correct me.