Restaurateur: If San Francisco wants to retain its thriving restaurant industry, then we must defeat the newly proposed increase in the city dining tax. In cities across the country that have enacted a similarly high tax, within three years nearly 35% of all restaurants have gone out of business.

To better evaluate the argument above, it would be most useful to answer which of the following questions?

A. How would San Francisco’s new dining tax compare to other cities across the country?
B. Is price the most important factor for potential customers in determining where they will choose to dine?
C. What percentage of restaurants typically go out of business over a three-year period in cities without a similarly high dining tax?
D. How many restaurants are in San Francisco compared to other cities across the country?
E. Does the new city tax apply to restaurants that have been in business for more than 25 years?

+1 for C
If we have say 30% going out of business normally without taxes
The argument is weakened
But if 2% go out of business normally then it would mean 33% go out of business when taxes are applied.
So argument is strengthened that San Francisco should do something to protect it's restaurant industry

what is wrong with Option B here?

This question is somewhat inspired from OG question : https://gmatclub.com/forum/although-the ... 50052.html

In any way, the argument proceed by citing example of other cities and in doing so, the argument assumes:
1. the cited example (=of cities) are representative of San Francisco.
2. that the decrease of "35%" is not a norm/coincidence, and is caused by the implementation of similar high tax.

Once, you can get the above points, you can reach at the correct one. The official question (above link) is based on #1.

B: the whole argument is about judging/deciding what the result of newly proposed increase in the city dining tax would/will have on the thriving restaurant industry. So, "price" may be one aspect, but may or may not be the most important aspect. Linking "increased tax" with "price" may be correct, but the problem is with the "most important" part.

Cheers !!
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VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

In any useful to evaluate question, you should attack the argument and consider what flaws or assumptions exist. Here the primary assumption is that 35% of restaurants going out of business is a higher than normal figure. What if it is generally true that about a third of restaurants go out of business in a three-year period? Then this argument would be quite weak. The argument suggests that a high dining tax has caused a higher than average closing rate in other cities, but no evidence is given that 35% is actually a high figure. Given that, answer choice C indicates the question you would want to know the answer to in order to better evaluate the quality of the argument.

For (A), this comparison is unimportant as you are already given the necessary comparison in the stimulus – you know that other cities have a similarly high tax rate and the issue is only whether 35% is really significant. For (B), price does not need to be the MOST important factor within this argument. The argument suggests that higher prices caused by a higher tax would cause restaurants to go out of business, but this does not require that price be the most important factor for customers. For (D), with percentage data used in the stimulus, the number of restaurants in other cities compared to San Francisco is irrelevant. For (E), whether there may or may not be certain restaurants that are exempt from the tax has no meaningful impact on the quality of the argument. The correct answer is (C).
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