In a study conducted in Pennsylvania, servers in various restaurants

is it E>>>coz the argument is assuming that the note 'Thank you' is responsible for the higher tips, whereas it is not taking into account the usual tip giving habits of customers....it culd be such a case where all the particular bill payers, generally leave a higher tip than the general public...

I like your explanations on B as that was how I thought it should be. And the OA is B too.

But, is there anything wrong with A? Can't A function as an assumption too?

You see, if the impact was the same for both kinds of patrons, wouldn't A become an assumption that supports the argument?

I heard of the technique "If Yes/No" analysis. Shall we use it to go through choices A and B? From what ppl say, if an answer choice could support/weaken an argument whenever it switches from "If Yes" to "If No" or vice versa, then that is probably a correct answer. Choices that could not support or weaken whenever you use "If Yes" or "If No" would not be a correct answer. [Please, someone correct me if im wrong here]

For A

If Yes, A supports/strengthens the argument.

If No (ie. impact is different for both sets of patrons; some might tip a bit more and some a bit less, but ultimately all of them on average would tip more than previously), A cannot weaken the statement either. In fact, if you look closely, B actually still supports the statement.

Since both "If Yes/No" can only support the statement (Even when you swith to "If No", you still cannot weaken it), then this is probably not the answer.

For B
If Yes, B supports the statement. The reasonings are as provided by the previous posts

If No, B weakens the argument instantly. Say, if the patrons would revert back to tipping less, then the argument weakens.

Since both "If Yes/No" can support and weaken the argument, then this is probably the correct answer.

Hmm.... please let me know if you agree with my line of reasoning as it can be a bit hard to put it in words.

Thanks.

If regularly seeing “Thank you” written on their bills would lead to divert the customer to their earlier tipping habits then the conclusion would not hold. Clearly B

I'm pretty sure it's E. Google it for me. I'm at work and can't access sites with the OA on them. This question was posted before on GMAT Club before, though. Here’s why I think it’s E.



This explicitly assumes a cause and effect relationship with the thank you causing the 3% tips increase. There could have been several reasons why these waiters got higher tips. They may have been more customer focused and therefore worked harder- and the Thank You might have just been the icing on the cake rather than the cake itself. The point is that there is nothing in the stem that says we can control for the differences in service among the servers. E addresses this dead on IMO.

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.

E displays this cause and affect and is more than just the result of the study because the evidence of the study doesn’t necessitate that the Thank you’s were the cause of the increased tips. E’s the missing link. B IMO is a booby trap answer. It goes beyond the scope of the claim. Where in the claim is “regular tipping habits” defined or mentioned. Who has the habit? - those in the Thank you group or those who aren’t? I’d argue that both probably have tipping habits. Is B arguing that the Thank you’s would desensitize patrons to the Thank you’s? Even so, That’s a future statement. The actual claim is about what the servers “could have” received so it’s in the past.

Any way these are just my thoughts sometimes I'm wrong. But if B is the answer I can't see it's logic at all. I can see E's.

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.

Heres the explanation:

Option A states that both regular patrons and occasional patrons of the restaurant will be impacted in a similar way on seeing the 'Thank You' note. However, the impact is not mentioned clearly and hence this is out of scope.

Option B states that seeing the 'Thank You' note regularly would not lead restaurant patrons to revert to their earlier tipping habits. Thus, this option eliminates the possibility that would weaken the argument. In other words, using the assumption negation technique, we can see that if the patrons revert to their earlier tipping habits on seeing the note regularly, the average income of the servers would not be higher. This contradicts the original argument which concludes that higher tipping on seeing the 'Thank You' note will lead to a higher income for the servers. So this is the correct answer choice.

Option C seems to be a bit far fetched because in order for this option to be correct, we need to assume that the patrons would tip higher as they would think, on seeing the thank you note, that the tip is a significant part of the servers income.

Option D seems to be out of scope as we are not concerned with how expensive or less expensive a restaurant is.

Option E seems to be irrelevant as well because it adds on to the given premise that tip was high when the bill was accompanied by a Thank You note.

Hope this helps.

Cheers!

We do one study and conclude that we can continue the practice "regularly" and continue to reap the same benefits.
B is the only assumption that is required to make this conclusion.

A) not a necessary assumption. even if it had different effects and all regular patrons could have tipped much more to generate the extra 3% in tips or it could have been the other way around.
C) Whether the notes remind the patrons of something, insults them or applauds their generosity is outside this discussion. We are only focused on the end result of more tips.
D) The tipping rate could be different for restaurants. We are comparing previous tipping rate at the same restaurant, not across various restaurants.
E) All (or for that matter significant) number of patrons don't have to leave a larger tip. Only few may be leaving large enough tip to get the "average" 3% higher tipping rate.

hope this helps.

The answer is definitely B.

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

Let's negate B. Regularly seeing “Thank you” written on their bills will lead restaurant patrons to revert to their earlier tipping habits.

If they revert, the argument falls apart and the substantial increase in tips is not possible. So by negating B we can easily deduce that it is the right answer.

(A) is incorrect because it expresses a difference between the regular and occasional patron, but here in the question stem we are looking for the assumption BASED on the premise given.(C) states that the importance of occasional "thank you" will loose value if all the bills start containing a thank you message.
(B) wins

IMHO:

X: regularly write "Thank you" on bill
Y: avg income from tip is higher
Conclusion: Causation: X causes Y
Assumption: X does not cause (not Y) (not Y = "revert to their tipping habit = tip less")

Hence B

In a study conducted among servers in restaurants in Canada, it was observed that the tips on bills with a "Thank you " note attached were on an average 3 percentage points higher than those without the note. Thus, regularly writing Thank you on the bills will increase the average income from tips significantly.
What is the assumption on which the argument depends.

A) the thank you would have the same effect on regular patrons of the restaurant as on the occasional ones
B) regularly seeing thank you written on the bill will not make the customers change their tipping habits.
C) The thank you reminds restaurant patrons that tips constitute a major part of the income to the servers
D)The rate at which the customers tip does not vary with how expensive the restaurant is
E) Virtually all patrons of the restaurant who were given a bill with a thank you written on it left a larger tip than they would have.


The clear assumption in this question is that the patrons of the restaurant will continue their tipping habits,even after regularly seeing a Thank you written on the bill.

Considering choice A: If the regular patrons contribute towards a larger portion of the revenue earned by the restaurant, the tips that they give will also constitute a significant part of the total income received from tips. In this case, if regular patrons are not affected by the new thank you note, average revenues might not go up significantly- the key word here.

On the other hand, if regular patrons constitute a very small proportion of the customer base, then whether they tip higher or not does not matter at all as far as significant increase in revenues from tips are concerned.

Regular patrons total customers
20 1000 -very small effect
700 1000 -significant effect

So, does the statement as it is stand as a strengthener?

Also, choice A says that the thank you will have the same effect on both regular ones and non regular ones? What effect is this, we do not know. It could mean that both are affected in a way that they tip higher or both are affected in a way that the thank you has no effect. Or are we to assume that the effect being talked about in this option is that they will tip higher?

Suppose we change this statement- " Regular patrons are as likely to tip higher than are occasional patrons"-

Now, we don't know how likely the occasional patrons are to tip. If the likelihood is high- revenues will go up. If not, then revenues will not go up.

What do you think?

Could you suggest possible strengtheners?

The conclusion uses the word "significantly". Because we do not know the percentages, A as it is NOT a strengthener. It could either increase the income significantly or not, it depends on how many regular/occasional consumers the restaurant has and how much tips they left.

We have to assume that the effect will be higher tips. Because if the same effect were "no effects", then who left the tips?

A strengthener here IMO could be something like:
"All consumers who were given the "thank you" bill left a tip, and came back to the restaurant soon after"
This shows two things:
1)The effect of the bill are predictable and affect all consumers (so the case: "one consumer left a 1000$ bill, the other none, and the average was 3%" is not a realistic scenario).
2)This procedure does not discourage consumers, because they returned to the restaurant.

Hope this helps

In the context of the passage, "significant" means around 3%. The argument can't sensibly refer to a sample in which tips increased by 3% and say that in the future it will be a 10% increase.
Secondly, we don't know how much of the revenue of the restaurant or tips of the servers are generated from regular patrons or from occassional patrons, so comparing them does not help us any bit. We don't know about any of these and the option statement makes a comparison between these two.



Whatever you do with option A, it is going to remain on OFS answer choice till it keeps comparing regular patrons with occasional ones. We don't know about any of these. What would we gain by a comparison of these two? If we had known about tipping habits of one category of guys, then, by comparison, we might have gained something but as is, option A is completely non-nonsensical and out of scope.

Thanks,
Chiranjeev

Please see the article below:

article-what-and-how-to-negate-4-exercise-questions-138510.html

Also attend the free session. Link below:

https://egmat.adobeconnect.com/sc1-july/ ... ation.html

Regards,

Rajat Sadana

conclusion:write regularly THANK YOU on restaurant bills ===> income with tip will rise significantly i.e 3 percent (as per the argument)

premise: study conducted on various restaurant ==>bills with thank you earned 3 percent more tips.

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.==.whatever is the effect of patrons whether they are regular or occasional patrons==>end result is that we have received 3 percent more tip which is already proved in premise...==>so this has no effect.

B. Regularly seeing "Thank you" written on their bills would not lead restaurant patrons to revert to their earlier tipping habits.
now according to premise we gained 3 percent increase on tip having thank you message in an experiment.
that was only in the experiment period.what is different in that experiment period and the conclusion?
the only difference is that time duration==>THE experiment was/must be for some period of time==>in conclusion we are putting THANK YOU message regularly....so thats the only difference if that factor doesnt affect then or conclusion is perfect.hence this is correct

C. The written "Thank you" reminds restaurant patrons that tips constitute a significant part of the income of many food servers.
we are not concerned what it reminds or not==>if it reminds then it was reminding too during experiment also and viceversa.
so if you negate==>it doesnt remind===>this means experiment was successfull in the absence of reminder...so this one doesnt affects conclusion.


D. The rate at which people tip food servers in Pennsylvania Does not vary with how expensive a restaurant is.
again same as A...we are not concerned how it affects in different types of restaurant ==>end result is we are getting 3 percent increase in tip.
hence 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.==>again conclusion doesnt depends on this because whether the increment was because of ALL or because of SOME we are not concerned.

hope this helps

I just looked through the explanations, but just wondering why the answer can't be D.
I thought that if the answer to the statement D. is
1. Yes, Then when people perceive certain restaurants are more luxurious than others, they will give more tips.
2. No, Then they gonna tip less
To make this argument to be true, don't we have to asssume that this is an assumption?
I thought this statement works as a defender??? or I just misunderstood?
Could anyone please explain this for me??
Thanks

Hi Phunneyz

Glad to help

First of all, this question is about defender assumption. You're correct. But you misled the point because you did not determine the conclusion correctly (I guessed). The conclusion is " 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"
--OR--
The more "thank you", the more tip for servers. <== This is the point, it doesn't matter how expensive a restaurant is. The KEY is the relation between the frequency of the "thank you" shown on a bill with the average tip.

As you knowthe KEY of defender assumption is to ELIMINATE answers that can weaken the conclusion. That differs from supporter assumption that will close the gap between premise and conclusion. Just a small remind of theories.

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

Do you think D weaken the conclusion? Nope, D just talks about the rate of tip varying with how expensive a restaurant is, BUT NOT with how often the "thank you" is written on a bill. Do not infer too far, you should stick to the information provided in the argument. In fact, the argument does not say about the expensive of a restaurant.

Hope it helps.