In an attempt to increase store traffic and profits, a department

Question

In an attempt to increase store traffic and profits, a department store conducted a survey of shoppers to determine what factors most influence their decisions on where to shop. Shoppers were asked to rank six factors: product selection, aisle width, customer service, pricing, fitting rooms, and return policy. Nearly 70 percent of the shoppers ranked fitting rooms as the number one issue. Therefore, the store doubled its number of fitting rooms by dividing each of its existing fitting rooms in half. Within a month of remodeling, store traffic and profits decreased significantly.

The information above most strongly supports which of the following explanations of why the store's response to the survey failed to increase store traffic and profits?

A) The survey was not specific enough.
B) There are other factors important to shoppers, not involving the six factors mentioned, that the survey failed to include.
C) The store did not create a sufficient number of new fitting rooms.
D) Survey respondents were untruthful or mistaken in their answers.
E) Not enough people were surveyed.

MartyMurray · Accepted Answer

In an attempt to increase store traffic and profits, a department store conducted a survey of shoppers to determine what factors most influence their decisions on where to shop. Shoppers were asked to rank six factors: product selection, aisle width, customer service, pricing, fitting rooms, and return policy. Nearly 70 percent of the shoppers ranked fitting rooms as the number one issue. Therefore, the store doubled its number of fitting rooms by dividing each of its existing fitting rooms in half. Within a month of remodeling, store traffic and profits decreased significantly.

The passage presents a situation involving a surprising outcome: after the store took steps to address "the number one issue" cited by shoppers, "fitting rooms," traffic and profits decreased.

The information above most strongly supports which of the following explanations of why the store's response to the survey failed to increase store traffic and profits?

This is a Paradox or Best Explains question, and the correct answer will be the one that best explains why the outcome of the remodeling was not the one expected.

A) The survey was not specific enough.

This choice is interesting.

According to the passage, the factor in the survey that was ranked most important by most shoppers was "fitting rooms."

An issue that we an notice is that "fitting rooms" doesn't indicate much. What does "fitting rooms" mean? Does it mean that shoppers want more fitting rooms? Bigger fitting rooms? Easier access to fitting rooms? More time in fitting rooms? The survey doesn't indicate anything specific about fitting rooms.

Then, after the survey was conducted, the store made two changes to fitting rooms with only the information that "fitting rooms" is an important factor: it added fitting rooms and made the fitting rooms smaller.

Of course, it could be that the survey respondents weren't indicating that they like there to be many fitting rooms. Their point could even could have been that they like large fitting rooms, but without such specific information, the store added to and shrank the fitting rooms, a move that backfired.

So, it's logical that the reason for the surprising outcome is that the survey was not specific enough.

Keep.

B) There are other factors important to shoppers, not involving the six factors mentioned, that the survey failed to include.

The store's response did involve a factor, "fitting rooms," that most shoppers indicated influences their decisions regarding whether to shop.

Also, the store's response did not involve any change in "other factors" that could have made the store worse for shoppers. It involved only a change to the fitting rooms.

So, since the store did change something that matters to shoppers and didn't change anything else, the response could have been expected to result in an increase in store traffic and profits regardless of whether there are other factors that are important to shoppers.

Eliminate.

C) The store did not create a sufficient number of new fitting rooms.

Not creating a sufficient number of new fitting rooms would not explain why the store's response failed to increase store traffic and profits.

After all, creating even some new fitting rooms would theoretically be an improvement.

Eliminate.

D) Survey respondents were untruthful or mistaken in their answers.

The survey asked shoppers to rank factors in order of importance.

So, even if the respondents weren't truthful, they just ranked the factors out of order. In other words, they indicated that fitting rooms were important when in reality they were not.

OK, great. So, in that case, fitting rooms are not as important as they said. So, why then would traffic and profits have decreased when the fitting rooms were changed?

In a way, this choice, if true, would deepen the mystery rather than help to explain what occurred.

Eliminate.

E) Not enough people were surveyed.

If not enough people were surveyed, the store may have gotten inaccurate information regarding what most shoppers consider most important.

All the same, adding fitting rooms could have been expected to result in a least some increase in traffic and profits if fitting rooms are very important to at least some customers.

Eliminate.

Correct answer:  A

envy5 · Answer

A is the correct answer. The questions specifically asks for  why the store's response to the survey failed to increase store traffic and profits?

A) The survey was not specific enough. - A viable option as the vague nature of the survey may have lead the store to believe that the number of fitting rooms is the main concern of the shoppers, when it may be another factor (more likely the size of the fitting room and comfort). If the survey was more specific - say "comfort of fitting rooms", we would see a different response from the store and presumably an uptick in traffic and profits. We should keep this one.
B) There are other factors important to shoppers, not involving the six factors mentioned, that the survey failed to include. - irrelevant - the question asks specifically for the store's response and its effect, other factors aside from the fitting rooms are irrelevant
C) The store did not create a sufficient number of new fitting rooms. - very unlikely - most likely is that the number of shoppers decreased because they were unhappy with the smaller rooms, so number of rooms is actually detrimental to increasing store traffic and profits
D) Survey respondents were untruthful or mistaken in their answers. - possible, but completely unknown, what reason would shoppers have to be untruthful, or be mistaken in a fairly simple survey? Definitely not the strongest explanation.
E) Not enough people were surveyed. - As we do not know the initial amount of people surveyed, impossible to ascertain whether this was the main factor, definitely not the strongest explanation.

The only viable option is A.

Raman109 · Answer

Understanding the argument - 
In an attempt to increase store traffic and profits, a department store conducted a survey of shoppers to determine what factors most influence their decisions on where to shop. - Background info. 
Shoppers were asked to rank six factors: product selection, aisle width, customer service, pricing, fitting rooms, and return policy. - Survey details. 
Nearly 70 percent of the shoppers ranked fitting rooms as the number one issue. - Fact.
Therefore, the store doubled its number of fitting rooms by dividing each of its existing fitting rooms in half. - Steps taken by the store. But what's unclear is whether the number of fitting rooms was an issue, the small size an issue, or they don't give the required privacy or anything else. The store assumed that number was an issue and took a well-intended misguided response. 
Within a month of remodeling, store traffic and profits decreased significantly. - unintended result of the action taken.

The information above most strongly supports which of the following explanations of why the store's response to the survey failed to increase store traffic and profits?

Option Elimination - resolve the paradox.

A) The survey was not specific enough. - Yes. The survey never highlighted whether the real issues were the number, size, privacy, or something else. 
B) There are other factors important to shoppers that the survey failed to include, not involving the six factors mentioned. - out of scope. We are evaluating the fitting room issue, which was one of the six factors. 
C) The store did not create a sufficient number of new fitting rooms. - opposite. 
D) Survey respondents were untruthful or mistaken in their answers. - Out of scope. 
E) Not enough people were surveyed. - Even if more people were surveyed, the result would not change because the issue of fitting rooms may still be the number 1 issue, but further explanation as to what an issue is in fitting rooms.

nosaj · Answer

Thanks for the detailed explanation  MartyMurray ! I was stuck between A and B and guessed A, looking back now - how I logically make sense of eliminating B is as follows.

B. Supplying an example of an outside factor e.g. Store Lighting - even if we had an additional factor - it would not help us explain WHY did the change in fitting room (Doubling number of rooms & reducing size of rooms) fail to increase profit and traffic.

I think the question stem here is incredibly important, without comprehending it clearly it is tempting to look at B as a viable option. The STEM can be translated from:
- Which of the following explanations of why the store's response to the survey failed to increase store traffic and profits?
>> Why did increasing the number of fitting rooms and reducing the size of fitting rooms fail to increase store traffic and profits?

Let me know if this makes sense. Thanks in advance!

MartyMurray · Answer

Yes, that reasoning makes complete sense. Nice.

kanikaa9 · Answer

Whenever an argument involves surveys/studies/research, I try to look for answers that say sample is bad/biased etc.

In this argument, what caught my eye was that since shoppers ranked fitting rooms as #1 issue, the store created more no. of fitting rooms. My first instinct was what if they wanted bigger ones? And then I read the answer choices and  (A)  seemed to align with my line of thinking.

krrishabh96 · Answer

Correct answer: A
The core issue: The survey asked shoppers to rank "fitting rooms" as one of six broad factors, but never asked what about fitting rooms mattered to them. The store's action — dividing existing fitting rooms in half to double their number — reveals it interpreted "fitting rooms" as a quantity issue. But shoppers might have cared about fitting room size, cleanliness, privacy, lighting, wait times, or staffing near fitting rooms. By cutting each room in half, the store may have made the actual complaint (e.g., cramped, uncomfortable rooms) even worse while technically "addressing" the vague category that topped the survey. This directly explains why an action seemingly responsive to the survey backfired — the label "fitting rooms" was too vague to tell the store what to actually change.
 A) The survey was not specific enough. — CORRECT 
This is the only option that uses information actually given in the passage to explain the failure. The mismatch between "shoppers care about fitting rooms" and "store made fitting rooms smaller in number-doubling exercise" shows a broad category was translated into an action that may not match shoppers' real concern. The passage gives us direct evidence of this mismatch (the store's specific remodeling choice), so it's supported by the text, not just plausible in general.
B) Other factors not in the six listed. — WRONG
This is a general critique of survey design ("maybe they should've asked about parking, hours, location, etc."), but nothing in the passage suggests shoppers cared about factors outside the six listed. There's no textual evidence pointing to missing factors — this is speculation not grounded in the passage. The passage's clue (dividing rooms in half) has nothing to do with missing categories; it has to do with how the store interpreted an included category.
C) The store didn't create enough new fitting rooms. — WRONG
This actually contradicts the logic of the passage. The store doubled the number of fitting rooms — a substantial increase. If insufficient quantity were the problem, doubling should have helped, not hurt. Since traffic and profits declined after the change, "not enough new rooms" doesn't explain a negative outcome; if anything, the passage suggests the change (halving each room's size) made things worse, which points toward a quality/size problem, not a quantity problem. This option ignores the "divided in half" detail entirely.
D) Survey respondents were untruthful or mistaken. — WRONG
There's no evidence in the passage that people lied or were wrong about valuing fitting rooms. In fact, the passage gives us no reason to doubt that fitting rooms genuinely mattered to shoppers — the problem was what the store did about it, not whether the survey response was honest. This introduces an assumption (dishonesty/error) with zero support in the text.
E) Not enough people were surveyed. — WRONG
The passage states nearly 70% of shoppers ranked fitting rooms as the top issue — implying a seemingly robust, clear signal from respondents. Sample size isn't mentioned or hinted at anywhere, and a strong 70% consensus makes a "too few respondents" explanation especially weak, since a small or unrepresentative sample would be unlikely to produce such a lopsided result. This option is pure speculation unconnected to any detail in the passage.

CrazyBlender123 · Answer

B is wrong:  The passage states that nearly 70% of shoppers chose fitting rooms as their number one issue. The six listed factors were more than enough to capture what shoppers cared about. 
     C is wrong:   The store  did  create a large number of new rooms (doubling them). The problem was the quality and size of the rooms, not the quantity.  
     D is wrong:   There is no evidence in the passage suggesting that the shoppers lied or were confused. They genuinely cared about fitting rooms.  
   E is wrong:  The passage does not mention the sample size, and a result where 70% agree usually indicates a statistically strong trend.
 I didn't look that deep into A as I was unsure about so I kept it till I could eliminate it but eventually it turns out to be the answer.
 Answer:A

In an attempt to increase store traffic and profits, a department

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