bepositive wrote:
Owner of JavaJoint: Over the past year, the coffee store has become a daily hang-out for more and more teenagers. Many of our adult customers do not appear comfortable with this kind of crowd and some of them have told me that they will no longer stop here for a coffee drink. Since my goal is to maximize our revenue, I want you to discourage teenagers from coming here and start cultivating a more adult crowd.
Store manager: Are you sure? On average, each teenager spends just as much as the average adult does, and we have far more new customers than we have lost over the past year.
The store manager responds to the owner by _____
(A) questioning the veracity of owner’s evidence
(B) arguing that it would be difficult to implement the owner’s directive
(C) offering new evidence implying that the status quo is not incompatible with the owner’s goal
(D) demonstrating that the average teenage customer is as profitable as the average adult customer
(E) offering new evidence refuting that presented by the owner
OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
The owner of the coffee store makes three statements citing evidence supporting his belief that things are not going well at his store: 1) the store has become a hangout for teenagers; 2) many of his adult customers do not appear comfortable; and 3) some of them have told him they will no longer frequent the store. He then states that his goal is to maximize his revenue and directs his store manager to discourage the teenagers from frequenting his store and to cultivate a more adult clientele. We can reasonably infer that the owner believes that his directive will help him achieve his goal of maximum revenue.
In response, the store manager makes no attempt to refute the manager’s three statements, but instead offers some new evidence which implies that following the owner’s directive may work against the owner’s goal of maximum revenue, further implying that the status quo may be indeed be compatible with that goal.
(A) The store manager makes no attempt to question the veracity of the statements of the owner. When the manager asks “Are you sure?” he is questioning the owner’s directive (or its effectiveness), not the veracity of the owner’s evidence.
(B) The implementation of the owner’s directive is not mentioned by the manager and is not relevant.
(C) CORRECT. By asserting that the average teenager spends just as much money as the average adult and that there are more new customers than former customers, the manager is presenting new evidence that implies that the current situation is actually helping the owner achieve his goal more than his directive would.
(D) The manager only states that the average teenager spends as much as the average adult; hence, he makes a claim as to the relative revenue generated by the average member of each group. He does not make any claim as to the relative profitability of the average member of each group.
(E) The new evidence that the manager presents neither contradicts nor refutes any of the evidence that the owner had previous presented.
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