The conclusion of the passage is: "Rumored declines in automobile industry revenues are exaggerated."
Why? Because the automobile manufacturers' share of the industry's revenues fell from 65% two years ago to 50% today. However, during this same period, suppliers of automobile parts had their share increase from 15% to 20% and service companies share increased from 20% to 30%.
So our conclusion is about total revenue of the automobile industry, whereas our evidence supporting the conclusion refers to different automobile groups' share of the industry increasing or decreasing.
We must look for the answer choice that explains why the statistics given in the passage provide by themselves no evidence for the conclusion they are intended to support.
Answer choice (B) states: "No matter what changes the automobile industry's overall revenues undergo, the total of all shares of these revenues must be 100 percent."
Answer choice (B) correctly explains how, given by themselves, the statistics do not provide evidence for the conclusion that they are intended to support. The statistics merely explain to us how the shares of the revenue were divided, rather than any changes in the total revenue. Regardless of how the revenue changes, the shares of revenue will always be 100%; albeit the division of shares can change, e.g. two years ago the break down was 65/15/20 and today it is 50/20/30.
As you can see, the division of the pie has changed, but we have no information on how big the pie was two years ago and how big it is now.
Thus, answer choice (B) correctly explains why the evidence provided in the passage provides by itself no support for the conclusion.
Hope that was helpful! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
AkhilDecember 15, 2018
But isnt that what option C is also saying?
KatherineDecember 16, 2018
Hi @Akhil, happy to help. As Naz explained, the statistics in the argument describe “the division of the pie†(revenue shares) and not “how big the pie was two years ago and how big it is now†(overall revenue). In order to conclude that the declines in the overall automobile-industry revenues are exaggerated, we would need to see evidence that the overall revenue of the industry has not significantly declined. Instead, the statistics describe how different sectors in the industry have changed their share in the industry’s revenue. Therefore, Answer Choice B is correct.
Answer C says that the statistics do not provide evidence for the conclusion because, “no explanation is given for why the revenue shares of different sectors of industry changed.†It is true that the argument does not provide any explanation for the changes in revenue shares that the statistics describe. However, this is not the reason that these statistics do not provide evidence for the conclusion. Even if the argument provided explanation for these changes in revenue shares, this would still not be evidence for a conclusion that concerns the overall revenue of the entire automobile-industry.
BennyB33May 10, 2022
Doesn’t the passage add up to 100%? Only reason I didn’t pick this answer because the breakdown was representative of 100% in total. Fifty percent to the auto manufacturers, 20% to the service companies and 30% to the distributors adds to 100%.
Answer choice (B) correctly explains how, given by themselves, the statistics do not provide evidence for the conclusion that they are intended to support So if saying the pie needs to 100% and the breakdown equals 100% how does this answer weaken the conclusion?
Emil-KunkinMay 17, 2022
Hi BennyB33,
You're right that the passage adds up to 100 percent. However, the flaw is that the author confuses a percent of total revenues for the total amount of revenue earned. Perhaps a firm has increased its market share (what the passage discusses in its statistics) from 50% to 80%. However, this could be because the total market has declined, maybe last year the total market was worth 10M, but now it is only worth 5M. So even though the company increased its share of the market, the total actually fell from 5M to 4M. The market share of a firm is not the same thing as its revenue, as the share of all firms always is 100%, while the size of the market can change.
