12bhang wrote:
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.
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.
12bhang wrote:
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?
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