Critical Reasoning

To resolve this paradox... that justification has to be True..



because.. argument says "those restaurants which went from serving average quality food to high quality food showed no increase in patrons and a loss in profits"

my understanding is; Quality went up is TRUE...hence PRICE also went UP.... thus profit went down...as customers dropped..

Justification is true; but it doesn't mean that hypothetical action for which justification is given has occured.

B is my answer.

At first I thought C was correct, because if customers are unaware of all, the numer of customers will not increase, which means restaurant shows no increase in profit.
But when I read the passage again, I realized the key words here were "a loss in profits". Restaurant would loss their profit because they loss customers. The best reason for lossing customer is the higher price of food. Thus, B is correct.

I never thought this Question will call for these many responses...Hahaha!!

I shall ping Testluv was the OE ...

Guys , I am sorry , I dont Have the OA. and i really forgot from where I got this piece of CR

Hello all,

In paradox or "resolve the discrepancy" questions, we need to figure out the paradox. A "paradox" or "discrepancy" is just: something unexpected happened (surprise). In the passage, the paradox (or surprise) will usually be signalled by a contrast keyword ("but"; "yet"; "however" etc).

In paradox questions, it is important to have the answers to two questions clear in your head before approaching the answer choices:
1) What is the surprise (paradox)?
2) Why is it surprising (paradoxical)?

Here:

The paradox is that increase in food quality should attract more customers and increase profits BUT restaurants that go from providing average to high quality food have actually suffered a loss in profits. This is surprising because we would (presumably) expect the experts to be correct in saying that better food should lead to greater profits.

Only now are we ready to attack the choices. Normally, we are looking for a choice that will resolve the tension or surprise. Here, we are looking for a choice that will provide a partial resolution.

Choice C is correct. It tells us that consumers are only aware of the most significant changes. We are allowed to infer that a change from average to high quality food does not qualify as "a most significant change". So, even though they are serving better food, customers most likely do not notice this. Now, this would explain why profits did not go up. It falls short, however, of explaining why profits actually went down. It is, therefore, a partial explanation. (Of course, it is not too much of a stretch to infer that better food costs more money and that is why profits actually went down. At any rate, the choice definitely does provide a partial explanation).

Choice B does not partly explain why profits went down. If choice B had established that restaurants that improve the quality of the food they serve often DO (correspondingly) increase their prices, then it would definitely be providing an explanation, and would be a correct answer. However, it just tells us that restaurants that improve the food quality have a justification to increase price. So, justified though they may have been, we don't know if they actually DID raise their prices--so, this choice is incorrect unless you make an assumption! (Remember, the passage says that the way better food boosts profits is MORE customers, NOT higher prices).

Really wish I could borrow your brain or download it . I see the twist now, sense better food attracts more customers, the correct chice should relate to customers. B mentions restaurants owners and prices only.

What bothers me is that for a good portion of these questions, after narrowing down to 2 answers, the simpler answer wins. While we are looking for more real world like answer, as in this question, or a sophisticated answer, one that shows significance or intelligence in choosing, mostly the correct answer is closely related to the words in the question.

When you narrow it down to 2 choices, and you think, say, choice B is correct, but you are worried about Choice D, never change your answer to D unless you have an epiphany. The reason you are worried about D isn't because you think it might be correct but usually it is because you can't explain why it is wrong. Know that the test-maker often makes it harder to explain why a choice is wrong than it is to see why the right answer is right (another reason you don't want to over-use POE).

The only situation where you should actually change your answer is if you have a big epiphany--a big light bulb: "oh, of course the right answer is D, why didn't I see that the first time!"

If you don't get that big lightbulb, then you should just stick with the answer you thought was correct.

I must admit that B seems to be the answer. What's OA?