Kooclaka is a full-line vending business, which uses vending machines : Critical Reasoning (CR)

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07 Mar 2018, 01:49

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Kooclaka is a full-line vending business, which uses vending machines to sell cans or bottles of soft drinks and individual packages of snacks. When the management of Kooclaka considered whether to fill vending machines in hospitals with 330ml or 500ml cans or bottles, it decided to sell only 500ml bottles, because patients do not leave their beds very often, thus they prefer a larger, reusable bottle.

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

A. All Kooclaka’s products are manufactured by the same manufacturer. --Doesn't matter
B. The revenues from selling 500ml bottles are 5% less than for 500ml cans. --Correct. If cans make more profit for the firm then cans should be prefered over bottles
C. Kooclaka’s competitors sell only 500ml bottles in hospitals. --Doesn't matter.
D. More 330ml bottles than 500ml bottles can be put in a vending machine. --Few people will but 330ml
E. The average number of visitors is 2.3 per hospital patient. --This strengthens the argument

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25 Jul 2018, 21:03

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mikemcgarry GMATNinja carcass GMATninja2 abhimahna

I think this question needs a comprehensive answer.

There is no mention of the profits. Also I know bottles can be reused,but can CANS be reused.So according to me B is out of scope but unfortunately B is the correct answer.
Please help.

IMO C . C provides an alternate reason .Since competitors were selling "ONLY 500ml bottles",this forced Kooclaka to sell 500ml bottles.

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26 Jul 2018, 04:43

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warrior1991

mikemcgarry GMATNinja carcass GMATninja2 abhimahna

I think this question needs a comprehensive answer.

There is no mention of the profits. Also I know bottles can be reused,but can CANS be reused.So according to me B is out of scope but unfortunately B is the correct answer.
Please help.

IMO C . C provides an alternate reason .Since competitors were selling "ONLY 500ml bottles",this forced Kooclaka to sell 500ml bottles.

Ok, guys. Start with what we do know. We must weaken the argument, so undermine the conclusion.

The arguments tell us

Quote:

Kooclaka is a full-line vending business, which uses vending machines to sell cans or bottles of soft drinks and individual packages of snacks.

Here, we do know that the company sells something. Just a premise. Who cares.............

When the management of Kooclaka considered whether to fill vending machines in hospitals with 330ml or 500ml cans or bottles, it decided to sell only 500ml bottles, because patients do not leave their beds very often, thus they prefer a larger, reusable bottle.

this is our central argument, the management can fill the machines with either with 330ml or 500 ml in cans or bottles (according to the argument is the same) BUT consider the patients buy them not so often is better to sell the bigger bottles; they (the patients because for logic is the only reasonable antecedents but also could be the company) prefer the 500ml bottles.

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

A. All Kooclaka’s products are manufactured by the same manufacturer. Easy.]This tells us nothing about how to weaken the argument. Completely off

B. The revenues from selling 500ml bottles are 5% less than for 500ml cans.

The entire argument rotates around the economic concept of convenience. Considering B we can have a 5% loss; if the company sells to the patients 500 ml in bottles rather in cans, they are more profitable in this last format.

C. Kooclaka’s competitors sell only 500ml bottles in hospitals. Easy. The competitors and what they do is not of our interest.

D. More 330ml bottles than 500ml bottles can be put in a vending machine. Easy. The option to fill more pieces in the vending machine do not tell us about convenience. Profit or loss in selling our cans or bottles in 300ml or 500ml.

E. The average number of visitors is 2.3 per hospital patient. Easy. The average tells us nothing about the argument and how to weaken it

Bottom line: stay close to the conclusion of the argument. Moreover, this is not, if we wanna be picky, a 700 level but the inferior level: 600/700.

Ask for further assistance.

Regards

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26 Jul 2018, 10:39

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Thank you carcass for providing a detailed answer.

However I am still not clear as to where in the argument profit angle is talked about.We are assuming that argument revolves in terms of economic sense.Also you striked out C without providing enough explaination.
Also we are also assuming that CANS can be reused because in argument nowhere it is said that cans are reusable.

Please help.

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26 Jul 2018, 11:45

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The stem says exactly this

Quote:

When the management of Kooclaka considered whether to fill vending machines in hospitals with 330ml or 500ml cans or bottles, it decided to sell only 500ml bottles, because patients do not leave their beds very often, thus they prefer a larger, reusable bottle.

The company and its management goal is to sell via vending machine 330ml OR 500ml cans or bottles AND it took the decision to sell 500ml bottles because of the beds by patients are not so many.

What do you infer from this ?? the company wants to have what ?? a profit or it is a charity ??

Going to C.

The decision point is which format is better to sell. IF the company sells bottles it losts revenue in the order of 5%. As such, would be better to sell 500ml cans in the vending machine.

Quote:

B. The revenues from selling 500ml bottles are 5% less than for 500ml cans.

C talks about

Quote:

Kooclaka’s competitors sell only 500ml bottles in hospitals.

What company's competitor do is not OUR concern. Our goal is to decide IF the company is right selling 500ml bottles, and the answer (weaken) is NO. The company is wrong because of IF it sells those bottles, it will lose money in the order of 5%.

Make sense now ??

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26 Jul 2018, 23:27

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Thank you carcass again. This time a big one though.

You should answer one last question ,which I already mentioned before,of mine.

We are still assuming that CANS are reusable . It is not mentioned in the question stem that cans are also reusable though it is said that the patients prefer 500 larger AND REUSABLE BOTTLES.

Please help.

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26 Jul 2018, 23:44

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Well,

is a good question from you. Two thoughts jump into my mind:

1) it is not an official question and in this regard, this question is an example of how the official material is unbeatable.
2) often students think too much and go too much farther, beyond what is stated.

Pick the right one and move on once you have understood why the answer IS the right one.

Your goal is to pick as many questions as you can in the allotted time. NOT to spot possible incongruences.

PS: please leave kudos, it is a vital rule of the board for those who help you in a consistent manner.

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28 Sep 2018, 06:36

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Please explain E option.
I think that according to question premises, nowhere revenue profits are considered (though that is the goal of companies.). Here only patients in hospital are considered in premises. So option E considers visitors as well(and that too number >1) which calls into doubt whether visitors will prefer other varities.

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31 Oct 2018, 01:42

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The problem with E is that it doesn't give us any reason to go against what the patients want. It doesn't say, for instance, that visitors prefer a small can. We don't even know whether visitors actually use the machines more, let alone whether they have some other preference. B, on the other hand, gives a competing consideration. It may not be very compelling (Go against hospital patients' wishes just to get a slight boost in per-unit profit? Really?!?), but at least it pushes against the bottle decision. None of the other choices do, except maybe D, but we don't know whether there is any benefit to stuffing in a larger number of bottles. Maybe the machines are refilled quite regularly, or maybe any loss in sales volume is made up for by greater profits.

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31 Oct 2018, 02:45

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I still have the feeling that E would weaken the conclusion significantly.

If we assume the number of visitors to be a significant factor, the stocks might target the wrong audience, patients rather than visitors, and thus the vending machines might be utilized suboptimally.

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31 Oct 2018, 08:07

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This question does't seem like GMAT CR question.

We are vacillating between B and E.
In both option, we need to assume something and both assumption can be true.
Let's discuss first E,
Average number of visitors is 2.3 per patient.
Though it is not mentioned that visitors buy snacks from vending machine or not, we assume that they will buy more drinks and vendor is placing 500ml bottles for those visitors.

Now come to B,
Revenue from 500ml bottles is 5% less than 500ml cans.
Here we have to assume that only patients has access to vending machine.

But see, Kooclaka is doing business and must not be restricted to only patients.
I think E is better than B.

gmatexam439

Kooclaka is a full-line vending business, which uses vending machines to sell cans or bottles of soft drinks and individual packages of snacks. When the management of Kooclaka considered whether to fill vending machines in hospitals with 330ml or 500ml cans or bottles, it decided to sell only 500ml bottles, because patients do not leave their beds very often, thus they prefer a larger, reusable bottle.

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

A. All Kooclaka’s products are manufactured by the same manufacturer. --Doesn't matter
B. The revenues from selling 500ml bottles are 5% less than for 500ml cans. --Correct. If cans make more profit for the firm then cans should be prefered over bottles
C. Kooclaka’s competitors sell only 500ml bottles in hospitals. --Doesn't matter.
D. More 330ml bottles than 500ml bottles can be put in a vending machine. --Few people will but 330ml
E. The average number of visitors is 2.3 per hospital patient. --This strengthens the argument

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31 Oct 2018, 10:45

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The problem in that is "we assume." We cannot assume that visitors buy more than patients. In fact, if we think about the real-life scenario, a patient spents far more time in the hopsital than their 2.3 visitors do! In any case, since E says nothing about visitors' preferences, there is no reason to go against the existing plan. E definitely does not work.

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17 Apr 2025, 03:09

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LucyDang

Kooclaka is a full-line vending business, which uses vending machines to sell cans or bottles of soft drinks and individual packages of snacks. When the management of Kooclaka considered whether to fill vending machines in hospitals with 330ml or 500ml cans or bottles, it decided to sell only 500ml bottles, because patients do not leave their beds very often, thus they prefer a larger, reusable bottle.

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

A. All Kooclaka’s products are manufactured by the same manufacturer.
B. The revenues from selling 500ml bottles are 5% less than for 500ml cans.
C. Kooclaka’s competitors sell only 500ml bottles in hospitals.
D. More 330ml bottles than 500ml bottles can be put in a vending machine.
E. The average number of visitors is 2.3 per hospital patient.

Source: examPAL practice question

Bunuel chetan2u regarding B, having a 5% less revenue doesn't mean that the profit will also be less. It may that the cost to produce bottles is 20% less than the cost to produce cans. And so even if the revenue from bottles is less, they are still generating more profit per bottle.

Or is it the case that we have assume here that revenue means profit? If yes, how do we decide which to consider when?

Can you please help with this.

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17 Apr 2025, 08:27

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adityagupta0400

LucyDang

Bunuel chetan2u regarding B, having a 5% less revenue doesn't mean that the profit will also be less. It may that the cost to produce bottles is 20% less than the cost to produce cans. And so even if the revenue from bottles is less, they are still generating more profit per bottle.

Or is it the case that we have assume here that revenue means profit? If yes, how do we decide which to consider when?

Can you please help with this.

Hi, not a great question at all.
The argument doesn't even suggest the reasoning behind consideration. What is Mr K trying to achieve..
1) Increase profit per bottle
Then B is a weakener
2) Increase profit by increasing the volume.
D also can be a weakener here.

The question could have been better if a minimum consumption of say 500ml per day was given and then choices modified to fit in accordingly.

All in all, not worth spending time on.

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22 Apr 2025, 18:27

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This isn't a top-notch question, but D is too indirect to be a weakener. We don't know that fitting in more units will boost profits, since we don't know anything about profit per unit, units sold, frequency of filling machines, etc. We'd have to assume far too many things to get anywhere with D, whereas with B we have a direct hit to revenue for a single unit of the same volume.

chetan2u

Hi, not a great question at all.
The argument doesn't even suggest the reasoning behind consideration. What is Mr K trying to achieve..
1) Increase profit per bottle
Then B is a weakener
2) Increase profit by increasing the volume.
D also can be a weakener here.

The question could have been better if a minimum consumption of say 500ml per day was given and then choices modified to fit in accordingly.

All in all, not worth spending time on.

Kooclaka is a full-line vending business, which uses vending machines

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