crunchboss wrote:
In January of last year the Moviemania chain of movie theaters started propping its popcorn in canola oil, instead of the less healthful coconut oil that it had been using until then. Now Moviemania is planning to switch back, saying that the change has hurt popcorn sales. That claim is false, however, since according to Moviemania's own sales figures, Moviemania sold 5 percent more popcorn last year than in the previous year.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the argument against Moviemania's claim?
A. Total sales of all refreshments at Moviemania's movie theaters increased by less than 5 percent last year.
B. Moviemania makes more money on food and beverages sold at its theaters than it does on sales of movie tickets.
C. Moviemania's customers prefer the taste of popcorn popped in coconut oil to that of popcorn popped in canola oil. OFS
D. Total attendance at Moviemania's movie theaters was more than 20 percent higher last year than the year before.
E. The year before last, Moviemania experienced a 10 percent increase in popcorn sales over the previous year.
This is a GMAT Prep Question. I took it from gmatclub.com directory of
700 level CR Strengthener Question. Then I filtered the questions with this search string: "Source: GMAT Prep"
This is the location of this question on gmatclub.com:
Click HereThe Correct answer to this question is Option A, but I doubt its correctness.
Their is a difference between " ALL" and "EACH"
A. Total sales of
all refreshments at Moviemania's movie theaters increased by less than 5 percent last year.
According to me this means that if their were say 20 different types of refreshment items sold then sum total of all the items sold increased. However their might be few items whose sale might have been constant or decreased.
If all would have been each then Option A would have made more sense.
In light of what I have mentioned above option D, which is no doubt a great option but seems better than this.
Dear
crunchboss,
I'm happy to respond.
You are perfectly correct in that there most certainly is an important logical difference between "
all" and "
each."
The current version of (A):
Total sales of all refreshments at Moviemania's movie theaters increased by less than 5 percent last year. You are correct in that this refers to the sum total of refreshment sales over all types of refreshments. In other words, we could say that, on average, each refreshment increase less than 5%. Thus, the fact that the popcorn with the new oil had more than 5% means that it beat the average among the other kinds of refreshments. This strengthens the argument of Moviemania's critic, the voice of the argument.
You suggested:
Total sales of each refreshment at Moviemania's movie theaters increased by less than 5 percent last year. This couldn't possibly be an answer, because this contradicts the evidence. We are told specifically that "
Moviemania sold 5 percent more popcorn last year." Therefore, it would be a contradiction to way that popcorn sales increased by less than 5%. This is not a proper GMAT answer choice at all.
Choice (D) leaves us to a lot of assumptions:
D. Total attendance at Moviemania's movie theaters was more than 20 percent higher last year than the year before. If there is a 20% increase in attendance, does this correspond to a 20% increase in refreshment sales? Maybe, but it's hard to say. That's a big assumption, unsupported by the evidence we have. If attendance increases, do all refreshments increase by the same percentage, or are some refreshments more likely to increase than others? Again, we have no way of knowing. Finally, given this pattern of increase in refreshment revenue that might be associated with a 20% increase in sales, is a 5% increase in popcorn too high, too low, or just what we would expect? We have no way to know. There are too many assumptions here for this to be solid answer on the GMAT.
Finally, if we take the naive view that a 20% increase in attendance necessarily would correspond to a 20% increase in refreshment sales in an ideal world, and if popcorn sales produced only a 5% increase, this would strengthen Moviemania's argument. It would not strengthen the critic's argument, the argument the question is actually asking us to strengthen. Even in a naive view, this supports the wrong argument.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
_________________
Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test PrepEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)