Critical Reasoning

A manager at a local theme park has proposed doubling the number of attendants at the part's entrance gates, claiming the new attendants will alleviate line congestion. The manager reasons that, since the wait times at the entrance will be reduced from about thirty minutes to ten minutes, more people will visit the park, and the increased revenue will offset the cost of the extra attendants.

Which of the following statements, if true, provides the best evidence that the park manager's reasoning is flawed?

A) People who leave the current long lines at the entrance already reduce wait times to some degree

B) The lines at attractions inside the park already make the average wait times inside considerably longer than those at the entrance

C) A majority of people who visit the park have season passes, allowing them to bypass the entrance

D) Many visitors opposing the plan have indicated that they prefer congestion at the entrance to potential overcrowding inside the park

E) Though the number of attendants will double under the managers's plan, the number of visitors might only increase by 25 percent

Official answer will be provided after some time.

So the argument goes like this

double attendants -> remove congestion -> reduce time in line from 30 mins to 10 mins
Conclusion -> More people will visit park + increased revenue will offset the cost of the extra attendants


A manager at a local theme park has proposed doubling the number of attendants at the part's entrance gates, claiming the new attendants will alleviate line congestion. The manager reasons that, since the wait times at the entrance will be reduced from about thirty minutes to ten minutes, more people will visit the park, and the increased revenue will offset the cost of the extra attendants.

Which of the following statements, if true, provides the best evidence that the park manager's reasoning is flawed?

A) People who leave the current long lines at the entrance already reduce wait times to some degree Not interested/ irrelevant

B) The lines at attractions inside the park already make the average wait times inside considerably longer than those at the entrance CORRECT. Now this is the best reason why more people might not visit the park even if there is no congestion at the entrance. The wait time inside will kill them.

C) A majority of people who visit the park have season passes, allowing them to bypass the entrance If a Majority of people have passes, it will be beneficial for the minority who need to stand in queue at entrance. However, is it really convincing, why more people might not visit the park???

D) Many visitors opposing the plan have indicated that they prefer congestion at the entrance to potential overcrowding inside the park Do we really care what visitors opposing this plan think? We are hunting for a reasoning flaw why more people MIGHT NOT visit the park.

E) Though the number of attendants will double under the managers's plan, the number of visitors might only increase by 25 percent This is misleading. 25 percent of what? 25% of 100 is 25 but 25% of 100,000 is 25000. Leave it. We understand nothing of this phrase"might only increase by 25%"

Official answer B

Tommy Wallach wrote:Hey Challenger,

Can I ask the source of these questions? They don't seem super realistic to me, because they aren't hitting the assumption that the argument makes, which most questions do. To my mind, the major flaw here is that there's no evidence that wait times at the gate affect how many people want to come to the park. The "Correct Answer," still doesn't prove anything, because no evidence is offered to show that wait times have any affect on park attendance.

But I'm open to argument!

-t

Tommy,

Source is VeritasPrep. Actually, I posted the question because I doubt about its logic.

Personally, I don't like answer B because it is not strongly connected with the conclusion.

Conclusion states that "more people will visit the park, and the increased revenue will offset the cost of the extra attendants.". Visiting the park and visiting attractions are two different things. Some people may prefer just to walk through the park.

What is more important, the conclusion talks about money. Longer queues at attractions may not affect revenue at all because tickets may be sold by attendants at the entrance of the park. So who cares about non-profitable queues?

I chose E. E states that manager plans to double number of attendants. So he will double the cost of labor force while at the same time the revenue would not double because the increase in the number of visitor is only 25%.

It means that finally the profitability of the company would be decreased.

I also don't care about risk that quality in B may affect in the long-term because I think that such parks are not the places for regular visiting.

However, I agree that 25% might be 100 or 10^6 so it is not so important.

I agree E, too.

I agree E, too.

The key is...

"...claiming the new attendants will alleviate line congestion..."

The correct answer is "B", because, if we alleviate one source of line congestion, and in the process, create another source, we never "alleviated line congestion".

"E" gives us nothing. There can be any number of attendants, earning any salary.