Among consumers in this country who take cruises regularly

Question

Among consumers in this country who take cruises regularly, the percentage who chose High Seas cruise lines has decreased by 5 percentage points over the past five years. Since High Seas obviously relies on consumers to earn profits, these declines must have had a measurably negative impact on High Seas' earnings.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

(A) Some trips were cut from the cruise schedule, and there were trips during which ticket sales had historically been sufficient to achieve profitability.
(B) There are many more cruise lines in existence today than there were five years ago.
(C) The number of people who regularly take cruises has increased significantly over the past five years.
(D) Five years ago, High Seas reduced the number of cruises on its annual schedule.
(E) High Seas cruises travel to several different destinations.

rsvelc · Answer

The OA is C.
It tells that an overall increase in the population might not affect the earnings of the High Seas' adversely as there could overall increase in the population optinf for High Seas' cruise ship.

But I don't understand why A can should be eliminated. I had A and C as contenders, and I went with option A. For me, both A and C seem equally good answers.

Experts, please help me differentiate between the options.

Raghav9906 · Answer

I am not an expert but this is my thought process -

As you may have noticed, there is a cause and effect situation in the prompt - decrease in percentage of consumers choosing High Seas -> low earnings. It assumes that the decrease in the percentage of consumers choosing High Seas' cruise over the past 5 years is equivalent to decrease in number of consumers. In order to weaken, an attack on this assumption will provide a deep dent. The issue with this assumption is that decrease in percentage of consumer choosing High Seas' cruise is NOT equivalent to decrease in number of consumers choosing it. For example, if 500 out of 1000 consumers were choosing High Seas before 5 years and now due to increase in population (as mentioned in option C), 4000 out of 10000 consumers are choosing the cruise, though there is a slight decrease in percentage but the number of consumers have significantly increased, rendering the conclusion invalid.

Coming to answer choice A - It says that some trips were cut - may be due to shortage of consumers? Also, it mentions that there were some profitable trips too but we don't know how many, was the number of profitable trips > trips that were cut? No clue.

Hence, option C is the best.

Hope it helps!

Malzoo · Answer

(A) is wrong because the question is not about profitability. It is about earnings

DrAnkita91 · Answer

What is the question. Only the question stem and options are mentioned. please can you tell what is the question?

Bunuel · Answer

Fixed the issue. Thank you for reporting.

rahul5657 · Answer

Correct answer-

(C) The number of people who regularly take cruises has increased significantly over the past five years.

This directly weakens the argument. Even if High Seas market share percentage declined, the total number of customers could still be higher if the industry grew.

Example:

-Five years ago: 10 million total cruise-goers, 20% chose High Seas → 2 million customers

- Today: 20 million total cruise-goers, 15% chose High Seas → 3 million customers (more revenue despite lower % share)

This proves that losing percentage points doesn’t necessarily mean losing revenue.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Among consumers in this country who take cruises regularly

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Among consumers in this country who take cruises regularly

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