In the past most airline companies minimized aircraft weight

Question

In the past most airline companies minimized aircraft weight to minimize fuel costs. The safest airline seats were heavy, and airlines equipped their planes with few of these seats. This year the seat that has sold best to airlines has been the safest one - a clear indication that airlines are assigning a higher priority to safe seating than to minimizing fuel costs.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

(A) Last year's best-selling airline seat was not the safest airline seat on the market.

(B) No airline company has announced that it would be making safe seating a higher priority this year.

(C) The price of fuel was higher this year than it had been in most of the years when the safest airline seats sold poorly.

(D) Because of increases in the cost of materials, all airline seats were more expensive to manufacture this year than in any previous year.

(E) Because of technological innovations, the safest airline seat on the market this year weighed less than most other airline seats on the market.

whamberto · Accepted Answer

I have chosen E for this question:

The conclusion is:  This year the best selling seats to airlines have been the safest one, indicating that airlines are more concerned about safety than fuel costs.

The question stem looks for an answer choice that will weaken the argument.

A. This answer choice would support the argument.

B. This is a tricky answer. The problem is that although no airline company has announced a higher priority for safe seating, this does not mean that airlines are not doing so. They could be choosing not to announce this and internally making a decision to re-prioritize.

C. This would support the argument. The reason is because if the price of fuel is higher this year, that means costs will be higher. Since airlines are still buying these safe seats that are heavy, it would suggest that the airlines care more about safety than fuel costs.

D. This is irrelevant. We are not concerned with the increase in the cost of materials.

E. This is the correct answer. The reason is because since the safest seats are also the lightest, there is no  CLEAR INDICATION  that airlines are buying these seats because of safety. Airlines could be buying these seats because of the reduction in fuel costs.

KarishmaB · Answer

In the past: 
- most airline companies minimized weight to minimize fuel costs. 
- safest airline seats were heavy, and airlines used few of these. (since focus was on minimising fuel cost)

This year: 
- the seat that has sold best to airlines has been the safest one

Conclusion: Airlines are assigning a higher priority to safe seating than to minimizing fuel costs.

We are assuming that airlines bought the safest seat this year because if wanted 'safety'. What if the safest seat this year was the lightest and that is the reason that the airlines bought those? Then the airlines would still be assigning higher priority to minimising fuel costs. This would weaken our conclusion.

(A) Last year's best-selling airline seat was not the safest airline seat on the market.

What happened in one particular year is irrelevant (except this year). We are talking about "in the past" generically and "this year".

(B) No airline company has announced that it would be making safe seating a higher priority this year.

Whether they announce or not is irrelevant.

(C) The price of fuel was higher this year than it had been in most of the years when the safest airline seats sold poorly.

Doesn't matter what the actual fuel cost is. Airlines tried to reduce the cost they would incur by keeping aircrafts light. Even if fuel was cheap in the past, they tried to reduce their overall expense on it by keeping aircrafts light. What matters is not the relative cost of the fuel in the past vs this year, but their fuel cost with a heavy aircraft vs light aircraft each year.

(D) Because of increases in the cost of materials, all airline seats were more expensive to manufacture this year than in any previous year.

If all airline seats were more expensive this year, it is irrelevant. The carriers have to choose from available seats only.

(E) Because of technological innovations, the safest airline seat on the market this year weighed less than most other airline seats on the market.

Correct. If the "safest" seats were the lightest too, then perhaps the airlines bought them because they were lightest. This shows that perhaps the airlines are still focusing on the fuel cost only. This weakens our conclusion.

Answer (E)

laxieqv · Answer

weight is the key here ...E pointed out that weights of safe seats were reduced ---> even they buy more heavy seats, the total weigt of seats may be less ----> lower fuel costs.
E it is.

perfectstranger · Answer

The core point we've to be warned if airlines are interested with minizing fuel cost or not nowadays.

The choice E says that safety seats will induce minimizing costs because they weighten less than the other seats which in turn will lead airlines to minimize fuel costs.

QuanVsVerb · Answer

Conclusion: Airlines are assigning higher priority to safe seats than to minimizing fuel costs
Premise: Safest seats are the ones best sold to the airlines this year.

Assumption: Safest seats do not minimize fuel costs. i.e. safest seats are not lightweight. Undermine this assumption.

Alternatively, negate the conclusion and select answer choice that supports the negated conclusion along with the premises.
Negated conclusion: Airlines are not assigning higher priority to safe seats than to minimizing fuel costs

Skywalker18 · Answer

Type - weaken
Boil it down - In past the safest airline seats were heavy. This year the seat that has sold best to airlines has been the safest one - a clear indication that airlines are prioritizing safety over costs .
Pre-thinking - what if the safest seats are the lightest ones now .

(E) Because of technological innovations, the safest airline seat on the market this year weighed less than most other airline seats on the market - Correct answer

abhishekdadarwal2009 · Answer

In the past most airline companies minimized aircraft weight to minimize fuel costs. The safest airline seats were heavy, and airlines equipped their planes with few of these seats. This year the seat that has sold best to airlines has been the safest one - a clear indication that airlines are assigning a higher priority to safe seating than to minimizing fuel costs.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

(A) Last year's best-selling airline seat was not the safest airline seat on the market. 
Out of scope of the argument because best selling seat are not discussed directly but it means that the airlines did not prefer the safests seats.

(B) No airline company has announced that it would be making safe seating a higher priority this year. 
The airlines do not neccesarily make announcments to make changes in planes.

(C) The price of fuel was higher this year than it had been in most of the years when the safest airline seats sold poorly. 
Does not weakne but partially strenghten by aking a point about the fuel price.

(D) Because of increases in the cost of materials, all airline seats were more expensive to manufacture this year than in any previous year. 
 (E) Because of technological innovations, the safest airline seat on the market this year weighed less than most other airline seats on the market. 
The premise says that the safe seats are heavy, and the heavy seats makes the plane burn more fuel,the airline wants to save money by saving fuel.
Conclusin says that the seats were removed because they were the heaviest.but still the airlines use them to prioritize saftey
This choice says that the new safest seats were also the lightest,that proves that the airlines are just saving fuel not prioritizing the saftey.

==================================
Weakener CR:The link between the premise and the conclusion has to be attacked more than anything,and the choice that does so pick that more than anything.
==================================

AnubhavK · Answer

Correct choice is 'E' - This statement states the currently safest seat would also be heavier than the less safe seats.

shoumkrish · Answer

(A) Last year's best-selling airline seat was not the safest airline seat on the market.  We are not concerned about last year. 
(B) No airline company has announced that it would be making safe seating a higher priority this year.  We are not concerned about the announcement 
(C) The price of fuel was higher this year than it had been in most of the years when the safest airline seats sold poorly.  We are not concerned about the fuel prices. 
(D) Because of increases in the cost of materials, all airline seats were more expensive to manufacture this year than in any previous year.  Since the cost is already high, the airlines had to incur higher expense. Does not explain why the airlines are giving more importance to safety or less.  
(E) Because of technological innovations, the safest airline seat on the market this year weighed less than most other airline seats on the market.  Weakener. Since the safest seats weighed less, the airlines bought them and not to enhance the safety.

zoezhuyan · Answer

Hi experts,
 mikemcgarry ,  sayantanc2k ,  GMATNinjaTwo ,  GMATNinja ,

I did picked up answer choice E, but I am not sure why answer choice B is incorrect
 B No airline company has announced that it would be making safe seating a higher priority this year.
 
B seems to weaken the conclusion directly. just because of weakening directly, B is incorrect?

thanks a lot
have a nice day

GMATNinja · Answer

The conclusion is "that airlines are assigning a higher priority to safe seating than to minimizing fuel cost." Just because they are making safe seating a higher priority does NOT necessarily mean that they are going to ANNOUNCE their plans. The airline companies could easily upgrade the seats without making announcements.

So even if choice (B) were true, it would not necessarily imply that the airlines are not making safe seating a higher priority.

Chelsea212 · Answer

Hi everyone! I think this is a good question where the answer choices can easily confuse the test taker. Although the difficulty level is not indicated as being exceedingly difficult, I can see how this could be tricky so I wanted to contribute my perspective.

1. Read and compartmentalize  - Whenever there's a 'string' effect of relationships, I make sure I paraphrase the connections. Minimize weight = minimize fuel costs; Safest Seats = Heaviest Seats; **Minimize fuel costs = minimize weight = minimize safest seats** Got it, and now just locking in the premise-conclusion relationship here - Because airlines have bought the highest quantity of safest seats this year - therefore airlines have prioritized safety over cost.

2. Pre-think when possible - always!  - The initial thoughts that come to mind are maybe price fluctuations for the seats and fuel, the two variables mentioned in the argument. I'm going to move straight into the answer choices now as I can't think of much else.

3. Find 4 wrong answers 
 
(A) Last year's best-selling airline seat was not the safest airline seat on the market.  - That's cool, but what happened last year versus this year does not give me the appropriate information to determine what the motivation behind change was. All I know is that there was a change. The reason for those changes does not have to be price and so given that this statement is true, I cannot weaken nor strengthen the conclusion made.

(B) No airline company has announced that it would be making safe seating a higher priority this year.  - If no airline company has announced their strategic plans for the year we cannot make any assumptions about why they made the decisions they made. As a result, we cannot weaken or strengthen the argument.

(C) The price of fuel was higher this year than it had been in most of the years when the safest airline seats sold poorly.  - 'most' year indicates 'not all', and so
even if this statement is true, it does not effectively weaken the argument. If anything, it kind of strengthens it.

(D) Because of increases in the cost of materials, all airline seats were more expensive to manufacture this year than in any previous year.  - If everything from the heaviest to the lightest (i.e. safest to most unsafe) seats all increased in price across the board, then the increase in cost

(E) Because of technological innovations, the safest airline seat on the market this year weighed less than most other airline seats on the market  -  Bingo!   If the formerly heaviest seat is now lighter than most other products out there, this kills the argument. The weren't prioritizing safety, the reason for the change was just a result of price changes.

adkikani · Answer

VeritasKarishma   MentorTutoring

Could you help me with PoE?

Premise: The best seat sold is safest one.
Conclusion: ↑ priority to safety than ↓ fuel costs

Is the core of the question to raise a doubt on if airlines have not placed priority to safety over minimizing fuel costs?
I chose C since I thought that if fuel prices rise this year, then airline companies HAD TO chose safety in order to reduce expenditure on fuel costs.
I ignored E since I thought WHY it matters the way by which seats are weighed less than OTHER seats? How does technological innovations and comparison with OTHER airline seats help me to WEAKEN my claim ?

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  adkikani . My apology for taking so long to reply. I got hammered today with my business, but the weather itself kept me on my feet all day. Last night into this morning, a "bomb cyclone" dumped about a foot of slushy, heavy snow in my area, and the weight of the snow brought down several trees. I was out around 6.30am shoveling and repositioning yard items. Anyway, enough of my drama...

The argument above is that  airlines are assigning a higher priority to safe seating than to minimizing fuel costs . The  clear indication  of this supposed fact is that  this year the seat that has sold best to airlines has been the safest one . To  weaken  this argument, you need to raise doubts over whether the airline was indeed prioritizing safety by purchasing these bestselling seats. Notice that in your original answer, (C),  higher  is not qualified--how much higher? a penny? 1M USD?--not to mention that  most of the years  is vague and unconvincing. What about those other years? On the tail-end of that question, could  this year  have been similar to one of those  other years ? Choice (E), on the other hand, provides a possible  alternative  to the explanation given in the argument about the seats purchased  this year : the safest airline seats happened to weigh less  because of technological innovations . In other words, safety may not have been given priority, and the person making the argument is just interpreting a coincidence as proof positive of something by using the past as a basis for comparison. Although we cannot say for sure, it seems likely that the airline companies are up to their old tricks, seeking ways minimize  aircraft weight to minimize fuel costs .

I hope that helps. I am off to bed!

- Andrew

mba757 · Answer

I have a slight doubt, and hopefully, I articulate it clearly.

We know the conclusion is the following: ???a clear indication that airlines are assigning a higher priority to safe seating than to minimizing fuel costs.???

We can weaken this conclusion if we shed light on some other reason as to why they bought these safer/heavier seats. (e.g., within E, they're not only safer, but also lighter) Maybe they bought it because it was lighter, so they could reduce fuel costs (was maybe their underlying motive). Does the weakener have to hit both of these points? i.e., the airlines (1) NOT prioritizing safety and (2) actually prioritizing saving fuel costs

More specifically, what if there was another reason as to why the airlines chose the "safest" seat? What if the safe seats had some benefit for customers (e.g., cooling technology so customers could be comfortable throughout a given flight), which didn't necessarily minimize fuel costs in the process but it still resulted in airlines buying more of the safest seats? If an answer choice were something like this (hits on the one reason that they weren't prioritizing safety, but doesn't hit on the other point of fuel costs) would it be a weakener? Or does it have to address the full conclusion - both parts (safety and fuel costs)? Not sure if this made any sense...

svasan05 · Answer

Hi Sam

That's a very good question. For starters, let us begin by establishing the perfect identification of the conclusion of the argument presented by you:  clear indication that airlines are assigning a higher priority to safe seating than to minimizing fuel costs.

Now, we are required to  weaken the conclusion . The conclusion, however, is a single conclusion and not made of two parts as you have stated. It does not state that airlines are assigning higher priority to safe seating  and not as much  to minimizing fuel costs. The conclusion presents a comparative assessment of the priority placed by airlines on safety and minimizing fuel costs, and states that the former has higher priority that the latter.

Hence, we are looking to attack the comparative relationship between the two aspects of safety and fuel costs, and not safety or fuel costs by themselves. This is done perfectly by option (E) and hence is the correct answer.

Hope this helps.

Vegita · Answer

KarishmaB

Would you agree that option C gives us a reason why the airlines should be prioritizing fuel costs? But since they should be prioritizing fuel costs doesn't mean that they are actually doing so, this option has no effect on the conclusion.

Whereas option E directly attacks the reasoning of the author.

KarishmaB · Answer

Vegita

The actual cost of the fuel has no impact on the conclusion. Our conclusion is about "minimising fuel cost", whatever this cost may be. The way to do that for airlines is to use as little fuel as possible. Whether the fuel cost is high or low doesn't matter. They have not allocated a fixed amount of cost to fuel (in which case, a lower cost would lead to increase in allowable consumption). They are minimising cost which means that they need to focus on their consumption only and reduce it as much as possible (how the cost of the fuel is changing is not to be considered).

Say a child gets fixed pocket money for stationary. Then, if the price of stationary reduces, the child is happy (he can buy more). If the price of stationary increases, the child is unhappy because it impacts his capacity to buy.
But if the child is told to minimise his stationary cost, he will need to buy the minimum, totally necessary number of pens and pencils. Then, the change in the pricing of stationary doesn't impact him.

The conclusion says that priority of airlines is safety rather than fuel cost. 
We need to weaken it. That is, we need to show how the priority of airlines may still be fuel cost only and not necessarily safety. Option (E) shows us that the safe seats are lightest too so this means that fuel cost could still be the priority and safety may only be an added bonus.

stackskillz · Answer

Conclusion  - Safer seats are always more heavy and lead to increased fuel costs due to weight.
 Type  - Weaken

(A)  Last year's best-selling airline seat was not the safest airline seat on the market  - We are talking about the current year. This definitely re-affirms the shift of the airline industry towards safety. However, it doesn't answer the question, are the safer seats leading to increased fuel costs due to weight. It doesn't answer the question.  Drop

(B)  No airline company has announced that it would be making safe seating a higher priority this year.   Did the company market it's shift in priority? Whether it did or didn't the company can always shift it's priority towards safety whether marketed or not. This option can co-exist with the conclusion above.  Drop

(C)  The price of fuel was higher this year than it had been in most of the years when the safest airline seats sold poorly.  - This option indicates that the price of fuel has risen during a time when the most sold seat to an airline company is the safest in the world. Does this indicate the safest seats are heavy, not really. It does mean the cost of fuel has increased, but not as a function of the weight of the seat. This option has no impact on the conclusion.  Drop

(D)  Because of increases in the cost of materials, all airline seats were more expensive to manufacture this year than in any previous year.  - This answers whether the seats were costly to purchase, but doensn't answer the question, i.e., do safer seats lead to increased fuel costs due to weight?

(E)  Because of technological innovations, the safest airline seat on the market this year weighed less than most other airline seats on the market . - Yup this new information does weaken the assumption that the safest seats are heavy.  Keep

In the past most airline companies minimized aircraft weight

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In the past most airline companies minimized aircraft weight

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