BREAKING: Target Test Prep releases Brand New 2026 On Demand GMAT prep course

Redeem

A very difficult strengthen question.

This topic has expert replies
Post new topic Post Reply
Previous Topic Next Topic
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 934
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:16 am
Location: AAMCHI MUMBAI LOCAL
Thanked: 63 times
Followed by:14 members

A very difficult strengthen question.

by [email protected] » Sat Jun 16, 2012 6:46 am
I do not know from where the GMAC takes out the stimulus man???
Nevertheless the question is:

In January of last year, Fastfood King started using a new lowfat oil to cook its Fast Fries, instead of the less healthful corn oil that it had been using. Now Fastfood King is planning to switch back, saying that the change has hurt sales of Fast Fries. However, this claim is incorrect, since according to Fastfood King's own sales figures, Fastfood King sold 10 percent more Fast Fries last year than in the previous year.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the argument against Fastfood King's claim?

A] Total sales of all foods at Fastfood King's locations increased by less than 10 percent last year.

B] Fastfood King enjoys higher profit margins on its Soft Drinks than it does on Fast Fries.

C] Fastfood King's customers prefer the taste of Fast Fries cooked in corn oil to Fast Fries cooked in lowfat oil.

D] The number of customers that visited Fastfood King locations was more than 20 percent higher last year than the year before.

E] The year before last, Fastfood King experienced a 20 percent increase in Fast Fries sales over the previous year.



The given OA is A.


[spoiler]This was a completely different question altogether. I really do not know how the OA is A.


The explanation that I have is saying that:

If the overall average return of the overall company, is lets say less than 10% and the increase of sales of fast fries is 10% compared to the last year, then the fast fries has done well even when compared to the other of its products. That gives you an added evidence that the new oil has actually done well. A very minute detail, but very important.

Could any of the experts please help in this question.[/spoiler]
IT IS TIME TO BEAT THE GMAT

LEARNING, APPLICATION AND TIMING IS THE FACT OF GMAT AND LIFE AS WELL... KEEP PLAYING!!!

Whenever you feel that my post really helped you to learn something new, please press on the 'THANK' button.
Top
Source: — Critical Reasoning |
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 934
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:16 am
Location: AAMCHI MUMBAI LOCAL
Thanked: 63 times
Followed by:14 members

by [email protected] » Sat Jun 16, 2012 7:02 am
Let us analyze all the other options very carefully in this particular question...




Option B: Out of scope as we are not comparing it with the other fastfood's restaurant's products.

Option C: Weaken's the argument that we want.

Option D: The number of customers that visited Fastfood King locations was more than 20 percent higher last year than the year before. If the number of customers that visited was more than 20% compared to last year, then the fries have actually done bad. It indicates that the customers visited the shop, but did not buy the fries. SO it weakens the argument. But it must be possible that those customers might have come to buy something else. If the customers came and bought something else and not fries, then too it weakens the argument, saying that sales of fries have not done so well as it was expected to. That must be because of the change in oil.
Hence weakens the argument.

Option E: This option clearly weakens the argument without any doubts.


We are left with A. Just see again the options A and C. Both are very difficult to understand.

Hope this might have given you a clue...
IT IS TIME TO BEAT THE GMAT

LEARNING, APPLICATION AND TIMING IS THE FACT OF GMAT AND LIFE AS WELL... KEEP PLAYING!!!

Whenever you feel that my post really helped you to learn something new, please press on the 'THANK' button.
Top
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 1239
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 6:25 am
Thanked: 233 times
Followed by:26 members
GMAT Score:680

by sam2304 » Sat Jun 16, 2012 8:47 am
FFK new lowfat oil instead of corn oil - the change has hurt sales of Fast fries - this claim is wrong as FFK sold 10% more Fast fries last year than previous year.

We are to support against this - change has hurt sales i.e we have to provide evidence that change hasn't hurt sales.

A - If overall increase by all products is less than 10% and Fries alone contributes 10% among them then majority is contributed by Fast fries. Done - it supports against FFK's claim.

What is the source of this question ? A difficult one I say unless you use POE and find out what you are trying to strengthen :)
Getting defeated is just a temporary notion, giving it up is what makes it permanent.
https://gmatandbeyond.blogspot.in/
Top
User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 1248
Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2012 2:57 pm
Location: Everywhere
Thanked: 503 times
Followed by:192 members
GMAT Score:780

by Bill@VeritasPrep » Sat Jun 16, 2012 1:45 pm
I think we can pretty easily get rid of B (soft drink profit margins) and C (taste preference) for being irrelevant to the conclusion that Fast Food King's claim is incorrect.

FFK says the change in oil hurt Fast Fry sales, and the conclusion is that this is not true.

A says that overall food sales at FFK locations increased by less than 10% (say, 5% for simplicity's sake). If this is true, then a 10% increase in fry sales implies that fries outperformed overall food sales, and this would contradict the idea that fry sales were hurt by the oil change. This is the right answer.

D could help FFK's claim. If the number of customers increased by 20% and fry sales increased by 10%, then customers were buying fries at a slower rate than before. Since we are looking for evidence that FFK's claim is wrong, we can eliminate this answer.

E is largely irrelevant to the conclusion.
Join Veritas Prep's 2010 Instructor of the Year, Matt Douglas for GMATT Mondays

Visit the Veritas Prep Blog

Try the FREE Veritas Prep Practice Test
Top
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 1665
Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:04 pm
Thanked: 165 times
Followed by:70 members

by karthikpandian19 » Sat Jun 16, 2012 2:28 pm
I approached the POE (process of elimination) method, to achieve the answer A
[email protected] wrote:I do not know from where the GMAC takes out the stimulus man???
Nevertheless the question is:

In January of last year, Fastfood King started using a new lowfat oil to cook its Fast Fries, instead of the less healthful corn oil that it had been using. Now Fastfood King is planning to switch back, saying that the change has hurt sales of Fast Fries. However, this claim is incorrect, since according to Fastfood King's own sales figures, Fastfood King sold 10 percent more Fast Fries last year than in the previous year.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the argument against Fastfood King's claim?

A] Total sales of all foods at Fastfood King's locations increased by less than 10 percent last year.

B] Fastfood King enjoys higher profit margins on its Soft Drinks than it does on Fast Fries.

C] Fastfood King's customers prefer the taste of Fast Fries cooked in corn oil to Fast Fries cooked in lowfat oil.

D] The number of customers that visited Fastfood King locations was more than 20 percent higher last year than the year before.

E] The year before last, Fastfood King experienced a 20 percent increase in Fast Fries sales over the previous year.



The given OA is A.


[spoiler]This was a completely different question altogether. I really do not know how the OA is A.


The explanation that I have is saying that:

If the overall average return of the overall company, is lets say less than 10% and the increase of sales of fast fries is 10% compared to the last year, then the fast fries has done well even when compared to the other of its products. That gives you an added evidence that the new oil has actually done well. A very minute detail, but very important.

Could any of the experts please help in this question.[/spoiler]
Regards,
Karthik
The source of the questions that i post from JUNE 2013 is from KNEWTON

---If you find my post useful, click "Thank" :) :)---
---Never stop until cracking GMAT---
Top
Legendary Member
Posts: 784
Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2011 3:51 am
Thanked: 114 times
Followed by:12 members

by patanjali.purpose » Sat Jun 16, 2012 7:30 pm
[email protected] wrote:I do not know from where the GMAC takes out the stimulus man???
Nevertheless the question is:

In January of last year, Fastfood King started using a new lowfat oil to cook its Fast Fries, instead of the less healthful corn oil that it had been using. Now Fastfood King is planning to switch back, saying that the change has hurt sales of Fast Fries. However, this claim is incorrect, since according to Fastfood King's own sales figures, Fastfood King sold 10 percent more Fast Fries last year than in the previous year.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the argument against Fastfood King's claim?

A] Total sales of all foods at Fastfood King's locations increased by less than 10 percent last year.The given OA is A. [/spoiler]
IMO, A is NOT worded properly though we arrive at A using POE.

Argument: >10% fries sold (NUMBER OF FRIES = VOLUME) implies LOW FAT FRIES are GOOD

A says total sales (I HOPE THIS IS NUMBER - ie VOLUME) for all products <10%.

IMO SALES in A is ACTUALLY THE REVENUE and SALES IN ARGUMENT IS actually THE NUMBER OF FRIES. If this is true, then A says even though FFK sold >10% fries, its revenue increased by <10%. Then A makes sense, not otherwise
Last edited by patanjali.purpose on Sat Jun 16, 2012 11:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Top
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 934
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:16 am
Location: AAMCHI MUMBAI LOCAL
Thanked: 63 times
Followed by:14 members

by [email protected] » Sat Jun 16, 2012 10:17 pm
Sam2304, there is something that the option A of this question says. Understand it very carefully. The premise very clearly says that after the change, the sales of the french fries actually increased by 10%. So what else is required.

The thing is let us take an example. Suppose you are a company owner and deal in 5 product lines. In short owner of 5 businesses.

Let us say that last year, you got an overall return or the average return of 25% i.e overall company's growth was 25%. That is the average return. Now just organise the 5 business' return in the descending order. That is rank them. Let's say you deal in 5 businesses namely, automobile, petroleum, telecommunication, food restaurant, and garment industry. Now the average return of all the 5 businesses turned out to be a 25% increase when compared to the last year's last year.

Now rank the 5 businesses. 1. Automobile
2. restaurant
3. garments
4. telecommunication
5. petroleum

Now it is obvious that the 4th and the 5th ranked businesses will be having a return of less than 25%. So from the business man's perspective, those businesses are not doing that great, right!!!

But option A clears that thing as well.

I know that POE is the most optimum method in this question, but we must learn something from this question, to not make any mistake for the future questions....


If my post helped you guyzzzz, then press on the thanks button to acknowledge the effort.
IT IS TIME TO BEAT THE GMAT

LEARNING, APPLICATION AND TIMING IS THE FACT OF GMAT AND LIFE AS WELL... KEEP PLAYING!!!

Whenever you feel that my post really helped you to learn something new, please press on the 'THANK' button.
Top
User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 15539
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:04 pm
Location: New York, NY
Thanked: 13060 times
Followed by:1906 members
GMAT Score:790

by GMATGuruNY » Sun Jun 17, 2012 3:39 am
I posted an explanation here:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/fastfood-kin ... 10868.html
Private tutor exclusively for the GMAT and GRE, with over 20 years of experience.
Followed here and elsewhere by over 1900 test-takers.
I have worked with students based in the US, Australia, Taiwan, China, Tajikistan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia -- a long list of countries.
My students have been admitted to HBS, CBS, Tuck, Yale, Stern, Fuqua -- a long list of top programs.

As a tutor, I don't simply teach you how I would approach problems.
I unlock the best way for YOU to solve problems.

For more information, please email me (Mitch Hunt) at [email protected].
Student Review #1
Student Review #2
Student Review #3
Top
Post new topic Post Reply
• Page 1 of 1