At present the Hollywood Restaurant has only standard-height tables.

Why is Option D wrong?

a customer at tall table spends less time,

option d. says customer who spend less time order less expensive meals. which will reduce the revenue and profit eventually. instead, we use the standard high tables customers spend more time and the profit might not increase bu won't decrease as it occurs in the 1 st case. so why not option D.


option c says "a customer ", the mentality of one customer or very few cases. how does this weaken the argument more than option d does.

Even if we could be sure that customers who spend less time at the restaurant order less expensive meals, we would not know whether that would offset the benefit of increasing the flow of customers. For example, if you get two customers per hour at a stool seat and one customer per hour at a regular seat, that would only cause a decrease in revenue if the stool customers order meals that are less than half the cost of the meals ordered by customers at regular seats.

More importantly, as described in this explanation, the passage does NOT give us any reason to believe that stool customers will order less expensive meals. The passage only suggests that those diners will stay for a shorter amount of time.

The passage says that "diners seated on stools typically do not stay as long as diners seated at standard-height tables". This is the generalization about lingering. But the passage also implies that the customers of the Hollywood who would choose to sit at tall tables would do so to have a better view of the celebrities. So that gives us some reason to believe that those Hollywood customers might be an exception to the general rule (i.e. they might want to stay longer to watch the celebrities). This would probably hurt profits (fewer customers per hour would probably mean lower sales per hour).

This explanation might also help.

The argument is the if the restaurant replaces some of its seating with high tables + stools then profits will increase.

This is based on the fact that the Hollywood currently utilises standard tables, which don't allow customers to fully see the celebrities who frequent the hollywood, and such customers would prefer tall tables to fully see the celebrities.
We are then told that diners at tall tables don't stay as long as those at standard height.

The argument assumes a couple of scenarios:
1. that standard diners order the same ($) value as tall tables, but just take longer to dine.
2. that standard diners order more than tall table diners, but tall table diner volume is greater than that of standard diner volume, thus profits would be greater.

We are asked to highlight a flaw in the argument or weakness

A - Its incorrect because it doesn't really weaken or show a vulnerability. If anything, it shows a potential upside. If celebrities sit at tall tables, then they will be in plane sight of everyone's viewing and people may order more OR the same amount but stay longer. I initially thought diners would order the same amount ONLY, so profits would go down thus highlighting a vulnerability in the plan, but it can swing both ways.

B - is incorrect because the price for meals ordered shouldn't impact the plan. It is the presence of celebrities alone. If celebrities linger then customers will continue to cycle the tall-tables.

C - this was hard to interpret. But, essentially the argument assumes that customers at tall-tables won't stay as long as customers at standard tables when celebrities are present. I mean the whole reason those tall-tables are going to be installed is to facilitate celebrity spotting, so why would celebrity spotting customers decide to leave earlier if celebrities are present. Thus, the customers are stuck at a taller, perhaps smaller table than otherwise.

D - this is inherit in the plan, but its not a criticism of the plan. What if the higher volume of tall-table customers exceeds that of seated customers? Then tall-table customers would be a more profitable segment.

E - but this isn't the case. We are only told that the plan is to replace a portion. Incorrect.

Check out this awesome video explanation by fiftyoneverbal. Thanks a lot for this work!

Conclusion: high-chairs will increase profits , since cust. want high-chairs to view celebs & in high-chairs they spend less time.

Option D --> Trap 1: Cust. with high-chair order cheaper food
(may or may not weaken) --> what if much higher no. of cust. are served in a day, increasing rev. & profits.

Option E --> Trap 2: Cust. without high-chair can’t view celebs
(may or may not weaken) --> what if increased demand and usage of high-chairs are significantly high enough for increased rev. & profits.

Option C --> Winner: It’s an exception that cust. with high-chair spend less time
(assured weakening scenario) -->in other words, cust. seated on high-tools will, in most cases, indeed sit for longer hours, providing no added benefit than those seated at standard-height tables, and thus not increasing the margins.

Chose D but realized it is wrong. But I think back and realized C is better.
Most of us make mistake which comes from not properly understanding the question.

Profit = high tables (people stay for long).
Low profit = people do not stay as long.

C makes the better answer.

(D) a restaurant's customers who spend less time at their meals typically order less expensive meals than those who remain at their meals longer.
Furthermore, this says that ordering less expensive meal means revenue will decrease not profit!

Option D could be a valid answer to this question if I change the question stem to "The argument is vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that".

Option D seems to give a reason why the profits would not increase if the restaurant made the change.

However, the question stem also says "it gives reason to believe that it is likely that" - the first "it" here refers to the argument. Thus, we're looking for an option that the argument gives us a reason to believe in. Option D is NOWHERE indicated by the argument. The argument never gets into relating less time at meals with less expensive meals.

This question is a MIX of weaken and inference question types. We're looking for a weakener that is likely true given the argument.

Option E would not be correct even if I change the question stem to "The argument is vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that". The reason is that a restaurant doesn't need to accommodate ALL the customers to increase its profit. Even with customers left out, the profits can easily increase. The problem pointed by E is w.r.t. a situation in which the restaurants accommodates all the customers.

The conclusion is profits would increase. So profits = (SP - CP) X number of customers.
The key assumption here is that the number of people they can serve is more. Meaning people don't stay longer. What if people sit there for hours? That will impact the throughput, and the argument will collapse.

Option Elimination -
(A) some celebrities come to the Hollywood to be seen, and so might choose to sit at the tall tables if they were available. - We are not concerned about celebrities here. Out of scope.

(B) the price of meals ordered by celebrities dining at the Hollywood compensates for the longer time, if any, they spend lingering over their meals. - We are not concerned about celebrities here. Out of scope.

(C) a customer of the Hollywood who would choose to sit at a tall table would be an exception to the generalization about lingering - exactly. That's why the argument assumes that these people will not stay longer. If they stay longer, then the argument crashes.

(D) a restaurant's customers who spend less time at their meals typically order less expensive meals than those who remain at their meals longer - We don't know about the cost. It may be less expensive, have a much lower cost, and profitability is high or vice versa. Out of scope.

(E) with enough tall tables to accommodate all the Hollywood's customers interested in such seating, there would be no view except of other tall tables. - No. This is not what the argument assumes to conclude. Distortion.

This is one of those terrible wording official questions, and the logic behind the OA is completely violating the basic rule running in the CR.


Diners seated on stools normally leave earlier, and a higher turnover rate helps the restaurant make more money.


This wording sucks. It means:

1. the argument is not convincing;
2. we need to criticize it;
3. and we can say that this argument leaves us such a wrong idea.

 
The OA is no more than a rewording of the premise on which the argument relies—people who choose to sit at a stool might not linger like others.
However, it has to be interpreted in the opposite way to match the question, because this idea is deemed wrong. To wit, what the question wants is:

• people who choose to sit at a stool MIGHT NOT LEAVE EARLIER and thus higher profit would not be realized by replacing tables.

Does anyone see another question having such a logic—simply denying the premise—as the correct answer?­­­­­ That's the reason I say this question is violating the basic rule running behind the CR.­­

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