pk6969 wrote:
PLease can anyone elaborate on why b can't be the answer?
Let’s first consider the dispute laid out in the passage:
- There were 50,000 fewer hotel room night bookings in 2011 than in 2010.
- Hotel owners blame Miami@50 for allowing people to rent out houses instead of just hotel rooms.
- Miami@50 owners claim the down economy, NOT their website, is responsible for the majority of the decline in hotel room bookings.
- To support this, they say that they only rented out 8,000 apartments through their website.
So the dispute comes down to what is responsible for the MAJORITY of the decrease in 50,000 hotel rooms booked in 2011. According to hotel owners, Miami@50 is responsible because it rented out houses in addition to hotels. According to Miami@50, the down economy is responsible because they only rented out 8,000 apartments, and this would not account for the majority (25,000+) of the decline in hotel room bookings.
With that in mind, the question asks for an answer choice that weakens the Miami@50 owners’ claim. In other words, which answer choice gives us reason to believe that Miami@50, and not the down economy, may be responsible for the decrease in hotel bookings?
Quote:
B. Miami@50 rented out at least 8 times as many hotel room nights bookings as apartments.
(B) seems to indicate that Miami@50 rented out
at least 64,000 hotel room night bookings. But we still don’t know
exactly how many room night bookings Miami@50 rented out, and even if we did, it wouldn’t help. The problem is that we’re trying to explain the decrease in hotel bookings. Merely stating how many hotel bookings Miami@50 had this year does not explain WHY the number of bookings decreased. This is because Miami@50’s hotel bookings are presumably counted in the total number of hotel bookings.
So (B) gives us no reason to think that Miami@50 is responsible for the decrease in hotel bookings, and we can eliminate it.
And here’s (C):
Quote:
C. Most apartments in that Miami@50 rented out were rented out multiple times.
Miami@50’s entire argument is predicated on the fact that they only rented out 8,000 apartments, and the 8,000 figure is not enough to account for a
majority (25,000+) of the 50,000 booking decrease. But (C) tells us that most of those 8,000 apartments were rented multiple times. If that’s the case, then it’s possible that those 8,000 apartments do account for more than 25,000 of the 50,000 fewer bookings. For example, if each apartment was rented out an average of four times, then the 8,000 apartments would account for 32,000 bookings.
So (C) gives us reason to think that the Miami@50 owners’ claim is based on misleading and incomplete evidence. For that reason, it weakens their argument, and (C) is the best choice.
I hope that helps!