Q24 - Which one of the following, if

[daisy_dolly2002]

Can someone break down this question? I was really confused by it.

thanks!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

An important part of answering this question correctly relates to staying focused on the question stem. We're not just trying to support Tony, but provide a defense of Tony's position against Anna's reply.

Tony is saying that the new video cassettes will pose an economic opportunity for video rental stores, since the new cassettes are so much cheaper to make. Sure the cassettes don't last as long, but they're much, much cheaper.

Anna points out that it's not just the cost of the video cassettes that make up the total cost video rental stores pay for movies. She points out that royalties make up most of the cost. She concludes that the price video rental stores pay per copy would decrease by considerably less than 5 percent.

We're asked to weaken Anna's position.

(A) is irrelevant. The retail price of movies is not a factor in determining the price that video rental stores pay.
(B) strengthens Anna's argument. If the royalty fee is most of the cost, then each time you replace a cassette, you're adding more cost in royalty fees.
(C) undermines Anna's argument. If the royalty fees on the new video cassette will be half of the old kind, then even though the cassettes wear out twice as fast, the royalty fee should be about the same for an equal number of views of the new cassette. If the royalty fee is a wash, then the savings on the new video cassette could easily be 5% or more, since you're getting half of the views of the old cassette but only paying a third of the price of the old cassettes.
(D) is irrelevant. Anna's argument is about the cost to video rental stores for stocking their shelves with movies. This only addresses whether customers will purchase the video rather than rent the video. This doesn't affect whether video rental stores would save money by switching to copies on the new video cassette.
(E) addresses the rate at which these cassettes wear out and thus might be tempting. But this answer choice works more like answer choice (B) and could potentially mean quicker wear out rates, which means if the royalty fee is most of the cost, the fewer the rentals per cassette, the faster it wears out, and the greater the royalty fee becomes relative to the revenue generated from the cassette.

I know that's a wordy explanation! Let me know if you still have questions on this one.

[redcobra21]

Just had a question about (B). If the store is just replacing worn-out copies, how are we supposed to know that the store will need to pay the royalties again? I was under the impression that the royalties were paid just once, so it would make sense to buy the new cassettes if a "significant proporition were for replacements" since you'd mainly need to consider the cost of the cassette.

[WaltGrace1983]

Just had a question about (B). If the store is just replacing worn-out copies, how are we supposed to know that the store will need to pay the royalties again? I was under the impression that the royalties were paid just once, so it would make sense to buy the new cassettes if a "significant proporition were for replacements" since you'd mainly need to consider the cost of the cassette.

Anna: "...and royalties would have to be paid on additional copies." (last sentence)

In a way, (C) is the only potential answer just because it is really the only one that talks about royalties, the whole point of Anna's argument and the main thing we are supposed to defend Tony against.