Sales manager: Last year the total number of meals sold in our company

Question

Sales manager: Last year the total number of meals sold in our company's restaurants was much higher than it was the year before. Obviously consumers find our meals desirable.

Accountant: If you look at individual restaurants, however, you find that the number of meals sold actually decreased substantially at every one of our restaurants that was in operation both last year and the year before, The desirability of our meals to consumers has clearly decreased, given that this group of restaurants-the only ones for which we have sales figures that permit a comparison between last year and the year before - demonstrates a trend toward ferver sales.

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously calls into question the accountant's argument?

A. The company's restaurants last year dropped from their menus most of the new dishes that had been introduced the year before.

B. Prior to last year there was an overall downward trend in the company's sales.

C. Those of the company's restaurants that did increase their sales last year did not offer large discounts on prices to attract customers.

D. Sales of the company's most expensive meal contributed little to the overall two-year sales increase.

E. Most of the company's restaurants that were in operation throughout both last year and the year before are located in areas where residents experienced a severe overall decline in income last year,

I want to discuss the pattern of this question type.
to weaken we generally we find alternate reason for the conclusion.but here right answer is based on the alternate reason for the premise- decrease in sales-

Pls explain

omerrauf · Accepted Answer

The answer should be  E . Here is how.

The conclusion to the argument by the Sales Manager is that " Desirability of meals has increased ".
Accountant concludes that " Desirability has decreased " because the number of meals sold at certain restaurants has decreased.

Now you have to see that the accountant is referring to a " particular " group of restaurants, he is not talking about the overall sales. 
He is only talking about restaurants that have been open for two years. The cumulative " number of meals " from all restaurants (including the ones that just opened or opened last year are higher, we already know that from the Sales Manager's contribution to the argument). Now the accountant says that desirability has decreased based on numbers from restaurants that have been open for at-least 2 years. So in order to override his argument we need to find a reason to establish that the low sales in these restaurants are not attributed to " desirability " but  "something else is responsible for the low sales (for this particular group of restaurants)" .

E. Most of the company's restaurants that were in
operation throughout both last year and the
year before are located in areas where
residents experienced a severe overall decline
in income last year .

Option  E  does just this, it takes the blame off of desirability and puts it on the lack of disposable income.

boomtangboy · Answer

Hi,

Can someone explain this reasoning?

I cant understand how the premise is weakened if the restaraunts were located in a area where the income of the people declined.

Understandable that the no of meals would go down as disposable income would not be available to  those residents  but you could have an increase in out of town / area people who balance this decrease in number of meals served or generate even higher sales.

GMATD11 · Answer

people out of town will be out of scope.
Conclusion : no of meals will decrease
Premise : decrease in sales.

boomtangboy · Answer

Hi, Thanks !!! Ya I kinda rushed through the question & forgot the out of scope clause the GMAT throws in. Nice question :-D

chesstitans · Answer

this question is interesting because it is a mix question of weaken and logic-responding question.
the argument structure can still be found.
the shift of scope is "the year and the year before" from "restaurants whose sales decreased."

TejasD · Answer

Imo

E is correct because even though the incomes of customers was down, they opted to go to restaurants. Obviously their desire to go there, may be because of the quality, taste,etc.. has driven the restaurants to be in business.

Sent from my XT1562 using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

chesstitans · Answer

All of what you said is correct, I want to add more something.
 First, the question is quite long and it has many confusing details, and so do options.
 Secondly, B,C,D are out of scope. => A is wrong b/c A only talks about last year, and new dishes have nothing to do with desirable meals.

streetking · Answer

Once you summarise the conclusion of a CR question, especially for weaken/strenghten or assumption questions, they find the correct answer is made relatively easy.

In this one, the conclusion is that the desirability of meals has decreased because sales have decreased. Cause and effect. To weaken this, we need to find another reason why sales have decreased. Answer E provides this.

AbhishekDhanraJ72 · Answer

is conclusion of accountant this: The desirability of our meals to consumers has clearly decreased. or this : demonstrates a trend toward ferver sales. ???? i considered demonstrates a trend toward ferver sales thats why picked D. someone explain how to find conclusion in thses types of question please???

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

Hi Abhishek

A conclusion is that statement in the stimulus which acts as a judgement or a decision which is arrived at after taking into account the various facts (premises) which are presented.

Let us consider the statement that talks about fewer sales.

The desirability of our meals to consumers has clearly decreased, given that this group of restaurants -  the only ones for which we have sales figures that permit a comparison between last year and the year before  - demonstrates a trend toward ferver sales.

The portion within the hyphens act as a kind of appositive and can be ignored to understand the overall meaning of the statement. Now, we can see that the mentioned of demonstrating "fewer sales" is preceded by the phrase "given that". This phrase is a typical marker on the GMAT for facts or points of data, and act as a premise identifier. Therefore, the portion about "this group of restaurants...demonstrates a trend toward fewer sales" is, in fact, a premise and not the conclusion.

Hope this helps.

NeoNguyen1989 · Answer

It’s important to realize what are rationale of the argument. A correct answer choice might try to explain an out of scope element of the argument.

In the example above, the argument of the accountant doesn’t take into account the new restaurants but relies only on the sales of the stores that exists in last year and the previous year. Hence, the answer choice C might sound very tempting because it implies that the users are favoring the cuisines of the restaurant but it’s incorrect because it address the stores that are new while the accountant use the example of the stores that have opened at least during the last two years.

Only answer choice E address the right premise of the argument and explain how the premise wrongly turn to a conclusion.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Sales manager: Last year the total number of meals sold in our company

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Sales manager: Last year the total number of meals sold in our company

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