Critical Reasoning

Despite the fact that the health-inspection procedures for catering establishment are more stringent than those for ordinary restaurants, more of the cases of food poisoning reported to the city health department were brought on by banquets served by catering services than were brought on my restaurant meals.

Which of the following, if true, helps explain the apparent paradox in the statement above?

a. A significantly larger number of people eat in restaurants than attend catered banquets in any given time period.
b. Catering establishments know how many people they expect to serve, and therefore are less likely than restaurants to have, and serve, leftover food, a major source of food poisoning.
c. Many restaurants provide catering services for banquets in addition to serving individual meals.
d. The number of reported food-poisioning cases at catered baquets is unrelated to whether the meal is served on the catererт�Щs or the clientт�Щs premises.
e. People are unlikely to make a connection between a meal they have eaten and a subsequent illness unless the illness strikes a group who are in communication with one another.

Answer E.

A. If more people eat in restaurants, then you'd think more restaurant cases would be reported.
B. This would explain why catering would have less food poisoning than restaurants, but it's more; doesn't explain the paradox.
C. Irrelevant.
D. Doesn't draw a connect between the paradox between restaurant and banquet.
E. This makes the most sense. At a banquet, if a bunch of people get sick, they probably new each other and can pinpoint that the catering made them sick. Restaurant diners are all strangers so if person A gets sick they can't talk to person B who may have also gotten sick to confirm it was at the restaurant. Person A can't narrow down where they got sick which would explain why the restaurant food poisoning never was reported.

E is correct IMO

outreach wrote:Despite the fact that the health-inspection procedures for catering establishment are more stringent than those for ordinary restaurants, more of the cases of food poisoning reported to the city health department were brought on by banquets served by catering services than were brought on my restaurant meals.

Which of the following, if true, helps explain the apparent paradox in the statement above?

a. A significantly larger number of people eat in restaurants than attend catered banquets in any given time period.
b. Catering establishments know how many people they expect to serve, and therefore are less likely than restaurants to have, and serve, leftover food, a major source of food poisoning.
c. Many restaurants provide catering services for banquets in addition to serving individual meals.
d. The number of reported food-poisioning cases at catered baquets is unrelated to whether the meal is served on the catererт�Щs or the clientт�Щs premises.
e. People are unlikely to make a connection between a meal they have eaten and a subsequent illness unless the illness strikes a group who are in communication with one another.

reply2spg wrote:E is correct IMO

outreach wrote:Despite the fact that the health-inspection procedures for catering establishment are more stringent than those for ordinary restaurants, more of the cases of food poisoning reported to the city health department were brought on by banquets served by catering services than were brought on my restaurant meals.

Which of the following, if true, helps explain the apparent paradox in the statement above?

a. A significantly larger number of people eat in restaurants than attend catered banquets in any given time period.
b. Catering establishments know how many people they expect to serve, and therefore are less likely than restaurants to have, and serve, leftover food, a major source of food poisoning.
c. Many restaurants provide catering services for banquets in addition to serving individual meals.
d. The number of reported food-poisioning cases at catered baquets is unrelated to whether the meal is served on the catererт�Щs or the clientт�Щs premises.
e. People are unlikely to make a connection between a meal they have eaten and a subsequent illness unless the illness strikes a group who are in communication with one another.

hello there,
is there any OE for that?
Is it really an official GMAT question? if yes, what year?
I know E is correct, but why C is not? dont tell me that otherwise the number of food poisoning for restaurants would be great too.
cuz what if the food restaurants serve for their indoor customers and the food they serve in banquets differ in their quality?
then the food poisoning cases are in direct relation with the restaurants, while caterings may be considered responsible for them (since it happened in a banquet).
how can we be sure that C is incorrect plz????