Please help with this CR question

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Please help with this CR question

by kellogs4toniee » Wed Feb 08, 2012 9:42 pm
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 answer is A, and this is the explanation:

A. CORRECT. This statement indicates that Fastfood King's total food sales increased by less than 10 percent. As the sales of Fast Fries increased at a higher rate of 10 percent, this strongly suggests that the change to lowfat oil did not adversely impact the sales of Fast Fries.

My reasoning at first is that since it is a fact based on factual sales figures that sales of fries actually increased by 10%, but Fastfood King thought the oil would decrease sales figures, then the answer would be a reason why Fastfood King under-estimated sales. It just seems like the answer A is redundant and doesn't really add anything.

I thought long and hard over every question and ultimately chose D, mostly because of process of elimination and then finally guessing. I figured the 20% higher increase in customers might have distorted Fastfood King's conclusion regarding the sales figures of the fries.

Reading answer A, I can see how it is the answer. But I still can't think of a right mindset to go into this problem that would sufficiently lead me to answer A each time. Any recommendations on the line of thinking to answer this type of question?

Much appreciated in advance!
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by amil » Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:09 am
kellogs4toniee wrote: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 answer is A, and this is the explanation:

A. CORRECT. This statement indicates that Fastfood King's total food sales increased by less than 10 percent. As the sales of Fast Fries increased at a higher rate of 10 percent, this strongly suggests that the change to lowfat oil did not adversely impact the sales of Fast Fries.

My reasoning at first is that since it is a fact based on factual sales figures that sales of fries actually increased by 10%, but Fastfood King thought the oil would decrease sales figures, then the answer would be a reason why Fastfood King under-estimated sales. It just seems like the answer A is redundant and doesn't really add anything.

I thought long and hard over every question and ultimately chose D, mostly because of process of elimination and then finally guessing. I figured the 20% higher increase in customers might have distorted Fastfood King's conclusion regarding the sales figures of the fries.

Reading answer A, I can see how it is the answer. But I still can't think of a right mindset to go into this problem that would sufficiently lead me to answer A each time. Any recommendations on the line of thinking to answer this type of question?

Much appreciated in advance!
Hi,

Agree with you that it is confusing at times but based on my experience I can only say that the right mindset can come only with practising gud questions. For Stregthen questions, we have usually 2 cases -

1) We have to pick the conclusion and support it or the argument as stated in the Question. For e.g. in this question, we have the question as

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

and the claim is "change has hurt sales of Fast Fries". To prove this wrong, we have to find the answer choice saying that the sales have still increased.

2) We have a causal question and then we have to apply the five rules of Causal. Am sure you would know that.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,
Amil

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by [email protected] » Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:43 am
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.




It was a typical causal reasoning question. If X causes Y

Here the low fat oil caused the decrease in sales of fast fries. We have to disprove this or weaken this causal relationship.

Hence if you say that other parameter or other factor was responsible for the effect then the causation is weakened.

dOption A says that the sales of not only fast fries but also all the other products had decreased
somewhere when compared with te past.

Hence there is something else that is important..
.

As A is the closest hence A




Hope this helps kellogs4toniee !!!
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by GMATGuruNY » Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:52 am
kellogs4toniee wrote: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 answer is A, and this is the explanation:

A. CORRECT. This statement indicates that Fastfood King's total food sales increased by less than 10 percent. As the sales of Fast Fries increased at a higher rate of 10 percent, this strongly suggests that the change to lowfat oil did not adversely impact the sales of Fast Fries.

My reasoning at first is that since it is a fact based on factual sales figures that sales of fries actually increased by 10%, but Fastfood King thought the oil would decrease sales figures, then the answer would be a reason why Fastfood King under-estimated sales. It just seems like the answer A is redundant and doesn't really add anything.

I thought long and hard over every question and ultimately chose D, mostly because of process of elimination and then finally guessing. I figured the 20% higher increase in customers might have distorted Fastfood King's conclusion regarding the sales figures of the fries.

Reading answer A, I can see how it is the answer. But I still can't think of a right mindset to go into this problem that would sufficiently lead me to answer A each time. Any recommendations on the line of thinking to answer this type of question?

Much appreciated in advance!
This argument links a STATISTIC to a conclusion.
When an argument offers a statistic as evidence, the assumption is generally the same: that there is ONLY ONE WAY to interpret the statistic.

Statistic: Fastfood King sold 10 PERCENT MORE FAST FRIES last year than in the previous year.
Conclusion: The change to low-fat oil DID NOT HURT SALES of Fast Fries last year.

A 10% increase could be good or bad; it depends on the CONTEXT.
If sales of every other type of food TRIPLED, then a 10% increase in the sales of the fries would be RELATIVELY small.
To support the conclusion here, the correct answer must show that the 10% increase was a good outcome and that sales of the fries were not hurt.

Answer choice A gives us what we need: Total sales of all foods at Fastfood King's locations increased by less than 10 percent last year.
If overall food sales increased by LESS THAN 10%, then the 10% increase in the sales of the fries was RELATIVELY high, supporting the conclusion that sales of the fries were not hurt.

The correct answer is A.
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