In January of last year the Moviemania chain of movie theaters started

Isn't this question a little bit too technical? Like increases in sales are less\grater than X years before so that means that sales actually decreased, bla-bla. I'm not a Business student so I'm not into all those terms and how they work.

Don't you think one has to rely on a lot of outside knowledge to answer this?

Thank you!

Dear iliavko,
I'm happy to respond. I have a few things to say.

First of all, this is a question from GMAT Prep, a question from the people who write the GMAT. A private company might write a question that did not match the feel of the GMAT, but official questions from the OG and from GMAT Prep are the most GMAT-like questions you will see. As someone who writes practice questions professionally, I am simply in awe of the quality of the official questions on the GMAT.

As I am sure you understand, the GMAT is a test designed to assess readiness for Business School. People who understand all this technical language are eminently ready for business school and for promising managerial careers. People who don't want anything to do with this technical language about business are probably better served by pursuing some other career path in life. It doesn't matter what you studied in your undergrad: there are many engineers on this site. If you want to go to B-school and you want to pursue a career in business management, then you should embrace every aspect of the discussion of business. You should read the business news in English every day: the Wall Street Journal, the Economist magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, etc. You should make it a point to make yourself much stronger in your areas of weakness. If you find the discussion of the business world stultifyingly boring, then you are probably pursuing the wrong career. Don't pursue something you hate because it is someone else's idea about what you should do.

This is a very subtle point. On GMAT CR, you never need technical outside knowledge of the specific industry or product. You don't need that. BUT--and this is something many students fail to appreciate--you need to have good instincts about the push-and-pull of the business world in general. See:
GMAT Critical Reasoning and Outside Knowledge

Finally, I will say: remember that GMAT Club is a public forum. People see what you write here. If you expressed these same sentiments during a business school interview, there is a very good chance that you would be rejected. You are essentially expressing that you don't like technical business discussion. This would be like a doctor saying that he can't stand the sight of blood or a priest saying that he didn't like religious language. If you run up against what you know, you could express curiosity or open-minded inquiry: those would be welcome on GMAT Club. When you express yourself in terms of criticism and complaint, especially when your targets are the official questions themselves, that reflects very poorly on you. You never know whether another member on GMAT Club will one-day be your boss, your co-worker, your supplier, your competitor, your buyer, your seller, etc. etc. In any public forum, it's always valuable to put your best self forward on each and every occasion. You only get one opportunity in life to make a first impression on someone, and it's worth its weight in gold to make each first impression as positive as you possibly can.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi Mike, thank you for the reply!

Well taking into account my Quant skills, I doubt I will be around any Bschool in the future lol..

I just think that some questions could be more elegant regarding the difficulty they bring. It's "easy" to make a Verbal question more difficult by throwing in jargon, percents, etc. But it's much more difficult to make it complex by introducing that subtle logic that you see on most GMAC questions, so I guess I expect more from GMAC specially on a 85% question.

Perhaps I didn't express myself well when I said "I'm not into technical terms" I meant that I don't deal with them on a daily basis and I don't have formal education on them, so IMO the jargon brings "unnecessary" disadvantage to those from non-business fields, specially in CR. I mean critical reasoning is 100% about logic. Or I am wrong?

And thank you for your feedback!

Moviemania started making popcorns in Canola oil and plans to switch back citing that the switch has hurt sales.
Argument: The claim is false because Moviemania sold 5% more popcorn than last year.

We need to support this argument that says popcorn sales has been good
Looking at the options, Option A establishes a relation between sales and refreshments.
Since total sales increased by less than 5% but the popcorn sales increased by 5%, which is more than the average increase of the refreshments.
This means that the popcorns are selling well.

Correct Option: A

Beautiful question that makes us remember the need to READ AND UNDERSTAND CAREFULLY
There are 2 wrong options that can confuse casual readers. We will discuss them one by one later.
Lets first break the argument into Premises and Conclusion
Premise 1) Moviemania started to use canola oil and stopped coconut oil for making Popcorns.
Premise 2) Moviemania wants to use coconut oil again.
Premise 3) Moviemania accept they sold 5% more popcorn last year (when popcorn were made in canola oil)
Conclusion) Therefore Moviemania is lying by saying that using canola oil has caused Popcorn sale to decrease.

Now Many test takers will choose wrong answers D and E which are blatantly wrong IN THIS CASE. WHY? Because the question is asking us :- Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the argument against Moviemania’s claim?

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.
RIGHT :- Nachos,burger, coffee, chips,cola, chocolate everything increase less as compared to popcorn that has increased by 5 %. So this totally destroys Moviemania claims that Canola oil is causing low sales. Truth is people are buying more popcorn. SO canola oil is helping the sale of popcorn

B) Moviemania makes more money on food and beverages sold at its theaters than it does on sales of movie tickets.
Wrong:- This is irrelevant to the issue we are dealing with.

C) Moviemania’s customers prefer the taste of popcorn popped in coconut oil to that of popcorn popped in canola oil.
Wrong:- There is no indication to show that people's preference actually translated in sales.

D) Total attendance at Moviemania’s movie theaters was more than 20 percent higher last year than the year before.
Wrong :- The people have increased, but sale has gone down. But this still does not addresses individual components of the total sale. Popcorn sale can go up and other item's sale may have declined .

E) The year before last, Moviemania experienced a 10 percent increase in popcorn sales over the previous year.
Wrong:- We are concerned about this year and the last years... not any time before that.

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.----- if total sales are less 5% that means most of the other refreshments sales was well below the sales of popcorn and also the popcorn sales have increased. This information supports the argument against claim.
B. Moviemania makes more money on food and beverages sold at its theaters than it does on sales of movie tickets.---- compares revenue from foods with that from movie tickets. Irrelevant
C. Moviemania’s customers prefer the taste of popcorn popped in coconut oil to that of popcorn popped in canola oil. weakener ( supports the M's claim)
D. Total attendance at Moviemania’s movie theaters was more than 20 percent higher last year than the year before. ---- tells total attendance at theater increased that is why the popcorn sales increased ( Z ---->Y ) weakener ( supports the M's claim)
E. The year before last, Moviemania experienced a 10 percent increase in popcorn sales over the previous year.---- talks about the year ,which is not under discussion

Hope your preparation is going well.
To do well in such questions, it is important to rightly identify the conclusion and premise. The next step should be to identify the gap or the flaw present in the argument. If it is an assumption question, right answer choice will bridge the gap, in case of strengthening question, the answer choice will reaffirm the assumption and if it is a weakening question, the right answer will target the assumption.
Conclusion: Lower popcorn sales is not due to change from coconut oil to canola oil, as Moviemania claims
Premise: Sales were 5% higher last year when canola oil was introduced than in the previous year
Assumption: It’s not a coincidence that sales rose when canola oil was introduced; no other cause is responsible for the rise in sales last year.
A: Strengthens-Since popcorn had higher sales than overall sales of all refreshments, it couldn’t be the reason for drop in sales - Correct answer
B: Irrelevant-Comparison with sales of movie tickets is irrelevant to the discussion
C: Weakens-If this is true, then Moviemania’s claim would become true
D: Weakens-Provides an alternate reason for the rise in sales
E: Weakens-Makes Moviemania’s claim stronger, since sales increased by higher % when coconut oil was being used
Hope it helps!! Please get in touch if you need further help. Always remember to do well in verbal, the efforts should be consistent.
PythaGURUS Faculty Team

Hi,
here are my two cents for this question

First this question is high on difficulty level because of options that are presented to us.

But should we understand what we are trying to strengthen, we could get the answer then by POE.

So Theater owners are saying that using certain oil for popcorn has hurt their popcorn sales.
But their sales figures show that they have sold 5% more popcorn than previous year.

Then why how did they come to conclusion that their strategy was bad and decided to go back on previously used cooking oil X
they must have assumed the following
Previously selling popcorn made in X oil always got them more than 5 % increase YOY
Also no of movie goers did not drop significantly.
Other theaters which sold popcorn made in X oil had more than doubled their sales of popcorn.
Refreshments other than popcorn that were sold registered a growth.

Now if i negate any of the above arguments then the Theater owners argument fails.

This is what is precisely done by choice A but in slight different manner.

All it is telling is Total sales of all the refreshments sold last year increased by less than 5%

Now to understand this part understanding the below will be helpful.
Ford Motor company sold more 5% modified trucks last year even though increase in their total sales of all the Ford automobiles was less than 5%.
Would it be wise to discontinue modified trucks from its offering .
No why because this is the sector that bought a certain increase % of total sales, other wise they wouldn't have any increase in % of total sales.

This is what precisely A tells.


Now Option D
Total attendance at Moviemania’s movie theaters was more than 20 percent higher last year than the year before.

Now this in a way strengthens Theater owners claim, because they assumed this factor when concluding their argument.
Many of my friends on the forum say this is weakening Theater owners claims.
Ok Look at the above statement this way

You are the owner of that Chain of theater and you have following data with you.

Earlier 1000 People went to theaters and on average in every 10 person who visited 3 bought pop corns . So total sales of 300 popcons.

and last year 1500 people went to theater. and popcorn sale grew by 5% which is equal to 315 . which other wise would have been 450( talking of organic growth)

What would you do as movie theater owner. You would switch back to tried and tested strategy.

So that is why this option is incorrect as it strengthen the theater owners claim.


Hope this helps
Probus

mikemcgarry

Except option A all other options are either irrelevant or all strengthen Moviemania's position, But how does option A strengthen the critic's argument? If the total sales of all refreshment increased by less than 5 %. How can we tell that Moviemania's claim is false? Relatively it might have performed better but does that guarantee that sales were not hurt? The total attendance at Moviemania’s movie theaters might have increased. Cannot understand exactly why is A a strengthener.

Actually key to solve this question is to understand we need to strengthen what?
supports the argument against Moviemania’s claim?- it means we need to support
That claim is false
--> we need to show that change of oil actually supports moviemania.

A makes that relation.

If you overall revenue increases by 3% but the revenue from the product that you modified increases by 8%. Don't you think your modifier product perform better? So why need to change it .

I hope it is clear.

A - correct comparison that when every food items are selling less then still popcorn sold more

B, C and E - Out of scope.

D - This is a trap answer and a weakener.

Conclusion - That claim (this shift of popping popcorn in canola oil rather than in coconut oil has hurt popcorn sales) is false (so the truth is that popcorn sales haven't gone down). The author shares a premise as to why he/she feels that the claim is false because the chain has, in fact, sold more popcorn as per their sales.

Scope - the scope of the argument is defined by the impact created on the conclusion. Any new information that does not impact the conclusion is out of scope. In this case, the scope of the argument is any new information that will support the conclusion against Moviemania's claim.

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. - "All refreshments" is a bit more confusing than "all other refreshments," but that's where GMAT needs us to apply our maths learnings. The author says that the popcorn sales increased by 5% per the Moviemania sales. Now, if the overall refreshment sales (including popcorn) are less than 5%, it means the sales of refreshments other than Popcorn are pulling down the average, which in turn implies that Popcors did well (maybe without the use of canola oil the popcorn sales would be lower).

(B) Moviemania makes more money on food and beverages sold at its theaters than it does on sales of movie tickets. - Is there any impact on the conclusion (That claim is false)? No. Does this information support the conclusion - No. Then it's Out of scope.

(C) Moviemania’s customers prefer the taste of popcorn popped in coconut oil to that of popcorn popped in canola oil. - support Moviemania Chian's argument that people like canola oil less than coconut, thus less POPCORN sales.

(D) Total attendance at Moviemania’s movie theaters was more than 20 percent higher last year than the year before. - support the Moviemania chain's argument. Attendance increased by 20% but the sales of POPCRON have just increased by 5% thus less POPCORN sales.

(E) The year before last, Moviemania experienced a 10 percent increase in popcorn sales over the previous year. - support the Moviemania chain's argument. 10 percent increase in popcorn sales over the previous year and last year just 5% thus less POPCORN sales.