In a study conducted in Pennsylvania,Servers in various restaurants wrote "Thank you" on randomly selected bills before presenting the bills to their customers. Tips on these bills were an average of three percentage points higher than tips on bills without the message. Therefore, if servers in Pennsylvania Regularly wrote "Thank you" on restaurant bills, their average income from tips would be significantly higher than it otherwise would have been.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument relies?

A. The "Thank you" messages would have the same impact on regular patrons of a restaurant as they would on occasional patrons of the same restaurant.

B. Regularly seeing "Thank you" written on their bills would not lead restaurant patrons to revert to their earlier tipping habits.

C. The written "Thank you" reminds restaurant patrons that tips constitute a significant part of the income of many food servers.

D. The rate at which people tip food servers in Pennsylvania Does not vary with how expensive a restaurant is.

E. Virtually all patrons of the Pennsylvania Restaurants in the study who were given a bill with "Thank you" written on it left a larger tip than they otherwise would have.

I think it should be B. What's the OA?

The argument states that waiters who write "thank you" on the bill on average get 3% higher tips on checks than those who don't. Therefore, the waiters believes that if they will get a more tips if they write "thank you" on each receipt. The questions asks for the assumption that the waiter's belief relies upon.


A. The "Thank you" messages would have the same impact on regular patrons of a restaurant as they would on occasional patrons of the same restaurant. The question does not distinguish between occassional and regular patrons. It only states that the patrons who see "Thank you" pay tip 3% higher than those who don't have "Thank you" on their checks.

B. Regularly seeing "Thank you" written on their bills would not lead restaurant patrons to revert to their earlier tipping habits.If this is true then it would not undermine the conclusion that people who see "thank you" will tip more.

C. The written "Thank you" reminds restaurant patrons that tips constitute a significant part of the income of many food servers. This statement is not necessary because it touches upon the reason why people might pay more. ie. Patrons could be paying more bc the "Thank you" makes them think that their waiter is friendlier. This does not undermine the conclusion.

D. The rate at which people tip food servers in Pennsylvania Does not vary with how expensive a restaurant is. Out of scope.

E. Virtually all patrons of the Pennsylvania Restaurants in the study who were given a bill with "Thank you" written on it left a larger tip than they otherwise would have.This is not an assumption made to draw the conclusion. This is the result of the study.

penssylvania-restaurant-gmat-prep-question-82045.html

OA is B.

Here's my reasoning for why it's not E. The conclusion is that if waiters write "thank you" on the checks, then they will receive a higher tip. The conclusion is drawn from the fact that in a previous study those who wrote "thank you" received 3% higher tips than those who did not.

According to E. Virtually all patrons of the Pennsylvania Restaurants in the study who were given a bill with "Thank you" written on it left a larger tip than they otherwise would have. This not an assumption that the conclusion depends on. Not all the patrons need to leave more tip than they otherwise would have in order for the conclusion to be drawn that writing "thank you" will increase the tip. The question states ON AVERAGE those who had "thank you" tipped 3% higher. Perhaps only half of the people left a higher tip. Perhaps only a quarter left a higher tip. Or perhaps only one person left a higher tip (a really really big tip). The number of patrons who left a higher tip does not matter in this argument. It's merely stated that ON AVERAGE tips were 3% higher. If the "thank you" induced anyone at all to leave a higher tip then they would have, then the overall tip would be higher.

Vannbj, I understand your reasoning that it's possible that the patrons who got "thank you" on their bill were incidentally the ones who also got better treatment from the waiters. Therefore the better service and not the "thank you" per say was the reason for the higher tip. However, statement E says that virtually all patrons of the Pennsylvania Restaurants in the study who were given a bill with "Thank you" written on it left a larger tip than they otherwise would have. Yes this argument does distinguish that the "thank you" was the cause of the higher tip, but like I mentioned before, it's not necessary for virtually all of the patrons to tip more in order for the conclusion to be drawn.

B IT IS.. without doubt

Whys is the OA B and not A when A states that regular patrons will have same impact as occasional , the author assumes that the high income would be generated irrespective of the frequency of occurence of bills.
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