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contradictory OA

by gmatmachoman » Sat Sep 11, 2010 12:26 am
Select the statement which best explains the apparent paradox below:

A study determined that cranberries have an exceedingly high oxygen radical absorbance capacity, which means that they are one of the foods that is richest in antioxidants. One month after this study was published, American consumers, who are extremely interested in getting antioxidants in their diet, bought one tenth as many cranberries.

(A) Many consumers had not known what oxygen radical absorbance capacity was before reading the study.
(B) The study was done in November, a month in which many cranberries are bought for a national holiday feast.
(C) The study was done at the beginning of a year in which cranberry sales were at a twenty-year high.
(D) The price of cranberries decreased significantly in the month after the study was completed.
(E) Consumers continued to buy other foods with high antioxidants, like blueberries, at the same rate between both months.
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by diebeatsthegmat » Sat Sep 11, 2010 12:39 am
gmatmachoman wrote:Select the statement which best explains the apparent paradox below:

A study determined that cranberries have an exceedingly high oxygen radical absorbance capacity, which means that they are one of the foods that is richest in antioxidants. One month after this study was published, American consumers, who are extremely interested in getting antioxidants in their diet, bought one tenth as many cranberries.

(A) Many consumers had not known what oxygen radical absorbance capacity was before reading the study.
(B) The study was done in November, a month in which many cranberries are bought for a national holiday feast.
(C) The study was done at the beginning of a year in which cranberry sales were at a twenty-year high.
(D) The price of cranberries decreased significantly in the month after the study was completed.
(E) Consumers continued to buy other foods with high antioxidants, like blueberries, at the same rate between both months.
i can only see A is the correct answer...explaining why the american buy only 1/10 as many cranberries after the study result released.
what is the answer
B is out of scope
C ant explain my question why....
D the price decreased the people must buy more, right?
E could be but they just buy it between 2 months, cant explain much
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by mohit11 » Sat Sep 11, 2010 10:21 am
I am going to go with B here.

Keywords here are -

A study determined that cranberries have an exceedingly high oxygen radical absorbance capacity, which means that they are one of the foods that is richest in antioxidants. One month after this study was published, American consumers, who are extremely interested in getting antioxidants in their diet, bought one tenth as many cranberries.


(B) The study was done in November, a month in which many cranberries are bought for a national holiday feast.

- This explains that in November the sales were high because of the festival, then the sales returned to greater than normal level because of the study but they were obviously not as high as that during the time of the festival

Whats the source of the question? and the OA :)
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by vishalj » Sat Sep 11, 2010 11:30 am
IMO E

The paradox is that if the canberries are the richest source of antioxidents why the american consumers just bought 1/10th of the total antioxidents. In other words, why they didn't buy only canberries? As I understand, E resolves this paradox by saying that the consumers are still buying other antioxidents.
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by gmatmachoman » Sat Sep 11, 2010 12:17 pm
@Mohit,

OA is B. can u plz elaborate more on that!!?
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by kvcpk » Sat Sep 11, 2010 12:17 pm
gmatmachoman wrote:Select the statement which best explains the apparent paradox below:

A study determined that cranberries have an exceedingly high oxygen radical absorbance capacity, which means that they are one of the foods that is richest in antioxidants. One month after this study was published, American consumers, who are extremely interested in getting antioxidants in their diet, bought one tenth as many cranberries.

(A) Many consumers had not known what oxygen radical absorbance capacity was before reading the study.
(B) The study was done in November, a month in which many cranberries are bought for a national holiday feast.
(C) The study was done at the beginning of a year in which cranberry sales were at a twenty-year high.
(D) The price of cranberries decreased significantly in the month after the study was completed.
(E) Consumers continued to buy other foods with high antioxidants, like blueberries, at the same rate between both months.
Hey Govi..
is this from knewton?

all options look equally bad. But C looks better to me among the lot. Whats is the OA?
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by gmatmachoman » Sat Sep 11, 2010 1:22 pm
Praveen bhai,

I am having miserable lifetime here..Knewton is good but when it comes to CR..Ohhhhhhhhh I dont have any words..


yeah needless to say this is from knewton only..

But yeah SC is awesome & quants is also good.. But CR...???
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by kvcpk » Sat Sep 11, 2010 1:30 pm
gmatmachoman wrote:Praveen bhai,

I am having miserable lifetime here..Knewton is good but when it comes to CR..Ohhhhhhhhh I dont have any words..


yeah needless to say this is from knewton only..

But yeah SC is awesome & quants is also good.. But CR...???
hmm.. thats bad.But good to hear that SC and Quants are good.
BTW wahts the OA for this?
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by reply2spg » Mon Sep 13, 2010 3:50 am
Hey Govi, I agree with the OA. B should be correct here. Below is my reasoning
gmatmachoman wrote:Select the statement which best explains the apparent paradox below:

A study determined that cranberries have an exceedingly high oxygen radical absorbance capacity, which means that they are one of the foods that is richest in antioxidants. One month after this study was published, American consumers, who are extremely interested in getting antioxidants in their diet, bought one tenth as many cranberries.

(A) Many consumers had not known what oxygen radical absorbance capacity was before reading the study. - If consumers not known previously and they come to know after reading the survey then they should buy more and not only one tenth. This does not resolve the paradox
(B) The study was done in November, a month in which many cranberries are bought for a national holiday feast. - Hold on
(C) The study was done at the beginning of a year in which cranberry sales were at a twenty-year high. - for this option we don't care when the study was done, because if it is done at the start of this year, or end of last year, doesn't give us any answer why customers purchase only one tenth, so eliminate
(D) The price of cranberries decreased significantly in the month after the study was completed. - This option rather than solving the paradox deepens the paradox. Price decreased is an incentive here, but then also customers are not buying more cranberries, why? no answer, eliminate
(E) Consumers continued to buy other foods with high antioxidants, like blueberries, at the same rate between both months. - This option also deepens the paradox, rather than solving it. If customers borrow other berries at the same rate then why do they bring cranberries less? No answer
Now let's see B.

Jan to Dec, except Nov, a customer buys 10 pounds of cranberries every month. Survey is done in Nov, a month in which many cranberries are bought for a national holiday feast, and because this month is of national Fest a customer bought 100 pounds of cranberries. Note that survey is not caring what happened from Jan to Oct. In the month of Dec a customer again bought 10 pounds of cranberries. Then survey says that though cranberries are rich in oxidants, a customer buys only one tenth of the cranberries compared to what he/she bought in Nov. However, in Dec a customer is buying same quantity of cranberries what he/she buys from Jan to Oct. So option B clearly resolves the paradox and answers both sides of the coin.

Note - I am taking a customer, which is a subset of all customers and trend of buying is same across the customers.

HTH!!!!
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by mohit11 » Mon Sep 13, 2010 9:35 am
gmatmachoman wrote:@Mohit,

OA is B. can u plz elaborate more on that!!?

The paradox here is that even though this study suggests that diet rich in antioxidants blah blah is good and american citizens are very concerned about antioxidants, therefore logically, they should by more cranberries. But 1 MONTH AFTER THE STUDY was published the americans actually bought 1/10 as many cranberries.


B states that in the month the study was conducted, i.e one month before the sales dropped, there was some kind of a festival where people bought cranberries in huge numbers. Basically, if the author had compared sales of cranberries 2 months before the study (i.e where there was no festival where people bought these cranberries), the sales would have actually increased. However, our author compared the sales in the month of festival (where people bought cranberries in huge numbers ) to the very next month when there was no festival.

Hope it helps.
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by gmatmachoman » Mon Sep 13, 2010 12:00 pm
mohit11 wrote:
gmatmachoman wrote:@Mohit,

OA is B. can u plz elaborate more on that!!?

. Basically, if the author had compared sales of cranberries 2 months before the study (i.e where there was no festival where people bought these cranberries), the sales would have actually increased. However, our author compared the sales in the month of festival (where people bought cranberries in huge numbers ) to the very next month when there was no festival.

Hope it helps.
@MOhit,

The argument just says that One month after this study was published, American consumers, who are extremely interested in getting antioxidants in their diet, bought one tenth as many cranberries



My Query?
Author never said "To which month the sales are compared"?
One-tenth of which month sales?? Is it november or before november??

If november:( say they bought 100000 cranberries ) and onetenth in december ( 10000) and if december sales is far greater than ( Jan- Oct sales ;say 1000), your logic wont hold!!

Am i correct??

If before November:

Okay lets say october sales is 200 and December sales is 20000 ( One-tenth of November sales;200000), the the author doesn't make sense to create paradox as this figures certainly ascertain that people are interested in AO.No surprise!!

@ sudhanshu:

wat if Jan-oct sales are lesser than December sales??
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by reply2spg » Mon Sep 13, 2010 5:05 pm
Dec sales are showing us that customers are going back to their original purchase and there was an increase only in one month.
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by gmatmachoman » Tue Sep 14, 2010 12:52 am
reply2spg wrote:Dec sales are showing us that customers are going back to their original purchase and there was an increase only in one month.
It never said so sudhanshu!! It just said they " bought one tenth as many cranberries "....This itself is half baked statement making the comparison unclear.
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by reply2spg » Thu Sep 16, 2010 11:06 am
What is your answer and resoning for that?
gmatmachoman wrote:
reply2spg wrote:Dec sales are showing us that customers are going back to their original purchase and there was an increase only in one month.
It never said so sudhanshu!! It just said they " bought one tenth as many cranberries "....This itself is half baked statement making the comparison unclear.
Sudhanshu
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