Critical Reasoning

Several airlines have recently intensified their fierce competition for business by offering tickets, that if purchased 2 days in advance, cost as much as 40% less than the heretofore lowest-priced "super-saver" tickets, which require a 30day advance purchase. The airline's long-term gains from tickets bought under this new plan will be enourmous bc unlike earlier discount tickets, these are not refundable. The author assumes which of the following about discounted airline tickets in predicting long-term gains in airline revenue?

A. More discounted, advance purchase tickets are purchased than are actually used.

B. Tickets requring 30day advance purchase are not profitable for airlines.

C.Few business travelers have taken advance of 30day advance purchase tickets

D. Airlines will have to discontinue offering 30day advance purchase tickets when they begin offering 2-day advance purchase tickets.

E. The majority of the 2 day advance purchase tickets offered by a given airline will be sold to passengers who have not previous flown on that airline.


Conclusion: long-term gains b/c these 2-day tickets are non-refundable
a) sounds like, this could be it! the choice says that the 30-day "discounted" tickets are returned b/c they are not used. since the 2-day tickets cannot be returned, the airline will not loose revenue b/c of that issue. if this choice is NEGATED, then the "non-refundable" feature of the 2-day tickets becomes useless.
b) irrelevant - the conclusion is focused on how the 2-day tickets, b/c they are non-refundable will help long-term gains
c) irrelevant again for same reason as B
d) no need for this assumption
e) the argument is not talking about "new passengers" -- it is merely focused on increasing long-term gains due to the non-refundable feature of the 2-day tickets.

instructors, thoughts?

san2009 wrote:Several airlines have recently intensified their fierce competition for business by offering tickets, that if purchased 2 days in advance, cost as much as 40% less than the heretofore lowest-priced "super-saver" tickets, which require a 30day advance purchase. The airline's long-term gains from tickets bought under this new plan will be enourmous bc unlike earlier discount tickets, these are not refundable. The author assumes which of the following about discounted airline tickets in predicting long-term gains in airline revenue?

A. More discounted, advance purchase tickets are purchased than are actually used.

B. Tickets requring 30day advance purchase are not profitable for airlines.

C.Few business travelers have taken advance of 30day advance purchase tickets

D. Airlines will have to discontinue offering 30day advance purchase tickets when they begin offering 2-day advance purchase tickets.

E. The majority of the 2 day advance purchase tickets offered by a given airline will be sold to passengers who have not previous flown on that airline.


Conclusion: long-term gains b/c these 2-day tickets are non-refundable
a) sounds like, this could be it! the choice says that the 30-day "discounted" tickets are returned b/c they are not used. since the 2-day tickets cannot be returned, the airline will not loose revenue b/c of that issue. if this choice is NEGATED, then the "non-refundable" feature of the 2-day tickets becomes useless.
b) irrelevant - the conclusion is focused on how the 2-day tickets, b/c they are non-refundable will help long-term gains
c) irrelevant again for same reason as B
d) no need for this assumption
e) the argument is not talking about "new passengers" -- it is merely focused on increasing long-term gains due to the non-refundable feature of the 2-day tickets.

instructors, thoughts?

Only A and B are contenders.

Still I will choose A.

What is OA?

I like A here. What is the OA?

san2009 wrote:Several airlines have recently intensified their fierce competition for business by offering tickets, that if purchased 2 days in advance, cost as much as 40% less than the heretofore lowest-priced "super-saver" tickets, which require a 30day advance purchase. The airline's long-term gains from tickets bought under this new plan will be enourmous bc unlike earlier discount tickets, these are not refundable. The author assumes which of the following about discounted airline tickets in predicting long-term gains in airline revenue?

A. More discounted, advance purchase tickets are purchased than are actually used.

B. Tickets requring 30day advance purchase are not profitable for airlines.

C.Few business travelers have taken advance of 30day advance purchase tickets

D. Airlines will have to discontinue offering 30day advance purchase tickets when they begin offering 2-day advance purchase tickets.

E. The majority of the 2 day advance purchase tickets offered by a given airline will be sold to passengers who have not previous flown on that airline.


Conclusion: long-term gains b/c these 2-day tickets are non-refundable
a) sounds like, this could be it! the choice says that the 30-day "discounted" tickets are returned b/c they are not used. since the 2-day tickets cannot be returned, the airline will not loose revenue b/c of that issue. if this choice is NEGATED, then the "non-refundable" feature of the 2-day tickets becomes useless.
b) irrelevant - the conclusion is focused on how the 2-day tickets, b/c they are non-refundable will help long-term gains
c) irrelevant again for same reason as B
d) no need for this assumption
e) the argument is not talking about "new passengers" -- it is merely focused on increasing long-term gains due to the non-refundable feature of the 2-day tickets.

instructors, thoughts?

it would be helpful to get instructors thoughts on this. thanks

I'll go with A.

The reason why the new plan will be profitable is because the airline's long-term gains from tickets bought under this new plan will be enourmous bc unlike earlier discount tickets, these are not refundable

A says "More discounted, advance purchase tickets are purchased than are actually used." If more of advance purchase tickets are purchased than used, it would be reasonable to assume that people return these tickets for refund. Hence, the non-refundable clause would be of help here...

What is the OA? Perhaps one of the instructors can weigh in.

you are both correct. OA is A.