Question: LaMonte stores sell both diamond and pearls jewelry. Recent years have shown that market demand for pearl jewelry has risen. As producing pearl jewelry takes twice as long as producing diamond jewelry, the demand for pearl jewelry continues to rise. Therefore, LaMonte will soon have to increase its staff to meet the market demand.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A) LaMonte has the financial ware-withal to increase its staff.
B) The number of staff has remained fairly constant during recent years.
C) The average productivity of each staff member is about the same.
D) There are no faster methods of jewelry making than those practiced currently.
E) Market demand for diamond jewelry has not significantly reduced as an effect of increased demand for pearl jewelry.

Answer: E
Explanation: According to the argument, LaMonte sells diamonds as well as pearls jewellery. The market demand for pearl jewellery has increased recently, as shown. The demand for pearl jewellery is always increasing since it takes twice as long to make as diamond jewellery. As a result, LaMonte will soon need to hire more employees to keep up with demand.
First part of question stem talks about "LaMonte stores sell" and then continues to talk about producing jewellery. Then it talks about the production process of jewellery, it doesn't state that LaMonte produces jewellery, just sells.
The question asks which of the choices is an assumption on which the argument depends. Only choice E makes the correct assumption.

Option E
Market demand for diamond jewelry has not significantly reduced as an effect of increased demand for pearl jewelry.- Correct.
In order to create more jewellery, serve more clients, etc., there would undoubtedly be a greater need for workers. But do we know if demand has grown more broadly. Only the rising demand for pearls is known. If demand for diamonds has significantly declined, total demand may remain stable or even decline. Therefore, we cannot claim that more employees will be needed. Therefore, option (E) must be true for us.

Let’s see the other available options

Option A
LaMonte has the financial ware-withal to increase its staff.- Incorrect. There is no mention of LaMonte's financial situation in the argument. As a result, it is incorrect because it cannot be implied.

Option B
The number of staff has remained fairly constant during recent years.- Incorrect. This indicates that the amount has not changed. However, we are unsure of whether the "number" of employees was high or low. We may thus make two arguments: 1. We do not need to hire more employees if the number is currently large. 2. Only if the number is low would we perhaps need to recruit workers. As a result, there are two sides to this debate, making this choice unsatisfactory.

Option C
The average productivity of each staff member is about the same.- Incorrect. Unable to be inferred. Diamond and pearl production have both grown along with the demand for pearl jewellery. LaMonte intends to expand its employees, thus there is a chance that the average level of production will be different or almost the same.

Option D.
There are no faster methods of jewelry making than those practiced currently.- Incorrect. Irrelevant. There is no mention of pearl jewellery specifically; just jewellery is mentioned. The conclusion does not state that the only way to accomplish this aim is to hire additional employees. By bringing up speedier alternatives while ignoring the argument that the demand for pearls is growing and processing them requires more time, it is explicitly refuting a premise. La Monde must bring on fresh personnel.

“LaMonte stores sell both diamond and pearls jewelry. Recent years have”- is a GMAT critical reasoning topic. This GMAT critical comes with five options and candidates need to choose the one which is correct. GMAT critical reasoning tests the logical and analytical skills of the candidates. To answer the question, a candidate can either find a piece of evidence that would weaken the argument or have logical flaws in the argument. Candidates get 65 minutes to answer 36 MCQ questions in the critical reasoning section of the GMAT.

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