yearly expenditures

This topic has expert replies
Legendary Member
Posts: 1112
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 11:16 am
Thanked: 77 times
Followed by:49 members

yearly expenditures

by atulmangal » Sun May 22, 2011 7:32 am
A bakery estimates its predicted yearly expenditures on ingredients when allocating its annual food budget by adding a correction factor of five percent to its costs from the previous year. This method allows the bakery to quickly and simply account for annual increases in the cost of raw ingredients.

Which of the following, if true, would most call into question the economic soundness of the bakery's method for estimating its food budget?


(A) The bakery might repeatedly account for the use of a costly ingredient that it no longer uses.

(B) Increases in the cost of raw materials have not varied considerably in the past decade.

(C) This method of budgeting might discourage the bakery from developing new and innovative recipes.

(D) The bakery might allocate too little money for its other operating expenses.

(E) Some bakery executives do not believe this is the best practice.

[spoiler]I find both Op A and Op B correct...how u select b/w them????[/spoiler]
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 199
Joined: Tue May 17, 2011 6:06 am
Location: Cambridge, MA
Thanked: 192 times
Followed by:121 members
GMAT Score:780

by Ashley@VeritasPrep » Sun May 22, 2011 7:47 am
Watch out for the wording on option (B). *If* (B) said instead, "The cost of raw materials has not varied considerably in the past decade," I would agree that (B) could work. But it doesn't -- it says "Increases in the cost... have not varied considerably" -- in other words, "The increase has been relatively constant." This makes (B) a bad answer choice, because in fact, the bakery's method actually relies on the assumption that increases have not varied considerably, since the bakery increases its estimate by a constant amount every year. So (B) is actually a necessary assumption, not a potentially weakening fact.

The fact that the subject of (B) is the "increases" (not the "cost") is the key!

Cheers,

Ashley Newman-Owens
GMAT Instructor
Veritas Prep

Legendary Member
Posts: 1112
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 11:16 am
Thanked: 77 times
Followed by:49 members

by atulmangal » Sun May 22, 2011 8:34 am
Ashley@VeritasPrep wrote: Watch out for the wording on option (B). *If* (B) said instead, "The cost of raw materials has not varied considerably in the past decade," I would agree that (B) could work. But it doesn't -- it says "Increases in the cost... have not varied considerably" -- in other words, "The increase has been relatively constant."
Great!!! Thanks a lot Ashley, i completely missed the intended meaning...i mean under exam pressure its a bit tricky to resolve specially for a non-native speaker...but no excuse...thanks a lot...in fact now i realize that somewhere Op B is actually strengthening the argument instead of weakening.

Regards
Atul

User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 234
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:02 am
Thanked: 5 times
Followed by:3 members

by champmag » Mon May 23, 2011 3:46 am
Good question.

I ended up choosing Op B too. This is such a shell game answer choice.

Legendary Member
Posts: 1112
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 11:16 am
Thanked: 77 times
Followed by:49 members

by atulmangal » Mon May 23, 2011 5:29 am
champmag wrote:Good question.

I ended up choosing Op B too. This is such a shell game answer choice.
Yup thats what happened to me, i mean i picked both A and B and then since i missed the intended meaning of B so i picked Op B because i thought Op B weakens even more then OP A....really nice question especially under exam pressure.