GMAT&LSAT CR Test 1st-17th

17. Companies considering new cost-cutting manufacturing processes often compare the projected results of making the investment against the alternative of not making the investment with costs, selling prices, and share of market remaining constant.

Which of the following, assuming that each is a realistic possibility, constitutes the most serious disadvantage for companies of using the method above for evaluating the financial benefit of new manufacturing processes?

(A) The costs of materials required by the new process might not be known with certainty.

(B) In several years interest rates might go down, reducing the interest costs of borrowing money to pay for the investment.

(C) Some cost-cutting processes might require such expensive investments that there would be no net gain for many years, until the investment was paid for by savings in the manufacturing process.

(D) Competitors that do invest in a new process might reduce their selling prices and thus take market share away from companies that do not.

(E) The period of year chosen for averaging out the cost of the investment might be somewhat longer or shorter, thus affecting the result.

答案：D。文中说做这样一个对比分析是基于cost, selling prices, and share of market不变。但是ABD选项都是说这几个变量未必是恒定的，而且C选项看上去也很合理的削弱了。为什么只选D呢？请多多指教哦：）最近帖子都没有人回，好伤心啊。。。。

首先，非常感谢Winbie的热心解答，但是，偶小菜鸟还是不明白这道题。。。。。。我觉得这样解释也很牵强的啊。大家各抒己见好吧！！

Sorry，理解错误，修改如下：

costs, selling prices, and share of market remaining constant是比较投资与不投资的前提条件

然后再分析提问的内容，使用这种方法来评估使用新的制造工艺带来的财务收益会给公司带来什么不利因素：

constitutes the most serious disadvantage for companies of using the method above for evaluating the financial benefit of new manufacturing processes

这样一来就比较清楚了：

(A) The costs of materials required by the new process might not be known with certainty.　虽然costs of materials不确定，但不是对公司最不利的

(B) In several years interest rates might go down, reducing the interest costs of borrowing money to pay for the investment.　对公司有利

(C) Some cost-cutting processes might require such expensive investments that there would be no net gain for many years, until the investment was paid for by savings in the manufacturing process.　这个选项无关，也不存在有利不利

(D) Competitors that do invest in a new process might reduce their selling prices and thus take market share away from companies that do not.　公司是在保持selling prices不变的情况下评估的，而竞争对手却有可能降低他们的selling prices，当然是对公司非常不利的

(E) The period of year chosen for averaging out the cost of the investment might be somewhat longer or shorter, thus affecting the result.　无关选项

我觉得winbie的解释蛮正确的呀。题目中指出了市场分析的前提是三个预设条件不变。但是D)给出了一个情况就是这三个条件都在变，那当然这个分析的结果就不可靠了。

我想lz可能比较疑惑的就是假使D)的情况发生了，那不是更证明了应该实施这个流程吗？但这不是这个问题的重心，而且分析过程自然需要进行大幅度的修改。举个简单的例子，可能这个流程能否被批准实施的标准是市场占有率提高10%（可能是流程的实施非常昂贵）。结果分析出来的结果是确实可以提高10%但现实不是这样的，结果导致公司老总决策错误，大家一块儿拍屁股走人～～～