Course of Action: Statement: The sale of a particular product has gone down…

Concept: A course of action is a practical, administrative step that can be taken immediately in response to the stated problem, without assuming facts the statement does not establish. Directly addressing the problem is not enough -- the step must also stand on the information already given, not on an unconfirmed cause.

Application: The statement only reports that sales have declined -- it gives no reason why. Studying rival products (Course I) is a low-cost, immediate step that gathers exactly the information needed to identify that reason, so it stands on the statement alone. Cutting the price and improving quality (Course II) is a corrective step that only makes sense if the decline is already known to be a price/quality problem relative to rivals -- a cause the statement never confirms, so this course rests on an assumption beyond what is given.

• Only I follows -- holds, since studying rival products needs no unconfirmed assumption and gathers exactly the missing information.

• Only II follows -- fails, since a price/quality overhaul assumes a cause that the statement never confirms.

• Either I or II follows -- fails, since the two measures address the situation differently (one gathers information, one commits to a fix) and are not interchangeable alternatives.

• Neither I nor II follows -- fails, since at least one of the measures does meet the course-of-action test.

Cross-check: If the true cause of the decline were something else entirely -- a shift in consumer demand or a distribution issue, for instance -- Course II would waste resources fixing a problem that doesn't exist, while Course I would still be a sound first step regardless of the actual cause. This confirms Course I is the one that follows on the statement alone. Result: Only Course I follows.