In Air Flight's regular customer surveys, complaints about flight

Question

In Air Flight's regular customer surveys, complaints about flight delays have increased over the last five years, as have complaints about cramped seating. Flight delays have become more common, but Air Flight's seats are no smaller, so airline officials interpreted the increase in complaints about seating as a natural outcome of the annoyance at delays. The airline is planning to improve its on-time performance; if it succeeds, the officials predict that complaints about seating will fall again.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously challenges the officials' prediction?

A) Passengers are significantly more likely to report feeling cramped in their seats if their flight is more than twenty minutes late in boarding.
B) People find it more difficult to sit still in crowded quarters if they are feeling impatient.
C) Air Flight's passengers have, on average, more legroom on flights now than five years ago.
D) Air Flight sells a significantly higher proportion of its seats now than it did five years ago.
E) In Air Flight's surveys, the number of complaints about the airline's food has increased over the last five years.

MartyMurray · Accepted Answer

In Air Flight's regular customer surveys, complaints about flight delays have increased over the last five years, as have complaints about cramped seating. Flight delays have become more common, but Air Flight's seats are no smaller, so airline officials interpreted the increase in complaints about seating as a natural outcome of the annoyance at delays. The airline is planning to improve its on-time performance; if it succeeds, the officials predict that complaints about seating will fall again.

Officials have predicted the following:

if it (Air Flight) succeeds (in improving its on-time performance), complaints about seating will fall again

The support for the prediction is the following:

Flight delays have become more common, but Air Flight's seats are no smaller, so airline officials interpreted the increase in complaints about seating as a natural outcome of the annoyance at delays.

We see that the officials have reasoned that the complaints about seating are caused by annoyance at delays, and so, once there is a reduction in delays, the number of complaints about seating will decrease.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously challenges the officials' prediction?

This is a Weaken question, and the correct answer will cast doubt on the officials' prediction.

A) Passengers are significantly more likely to report feeling cramped in their seats if their flight is more than twenty minutes late in boarding.

This choice helps to confirm the officials' prediction.

After all, what it presents is basically an example of an increase in compaints about cramped seating resulting from a delay.

Since such an example supports the officials' prediction, this choice is an opposite choice that strengthens rather than weakens the argument.

Eliminate.

B) People find it more difficult to sit still in crowded quarters if they are feeling impatient.

This choice helps to confirm the officials' prediction.

After all, it tends to confirm that people will be more likely to perceive seating to be cramped and complain about it when a flight is delayed. After all, if they "find it more difficult to sit still in crowded quarters if they are feeling impatient," then when they are feeling impatient, as they would when a flight is  delayed, they are more likely to complain about seating, which logically could seem more cramped to people having more difficulty sitting still.

Thus, this choice helps to confirm that the increase in complaints about seating is a natural outcome of the annoyance at delays and thus support the officials' reasoning.

So, this choice is an opposite choice that strengthens rather than weakens the argument.

Eliminate.

C) Air Flight's passengers have, on average, more legroom on flights now than five years ago.

This choice helps to confirm the officials' prediction.

After all, if Air Flight's passengers have, on average, more legroom on flights now than five years ago, then we have even more reason to believe that the reason for the complaints about cramped seating is something other than cramped seating, such as delays. After all, with more legroom, the passengers are less, rather than more, cramped than they were five years ago when they complained less about the seating. So, it seems unlikely that the seating is actually what's causing them to complain about seating.

So, this choice is an opposite choice that strengthens rather than weakens the argument.

Eliminate.

D) Air Flight sells a significantly higher proportion of its seats now than it did five years ago.

This choice is interesting.

The officials have reasoned that the increase in complaints about seating isn't really the result of seating issues because "Air Flight's seats are no smaller." For that reason, they've decided that the issue that's causing the complaints about cramped seating is flight delays.

However, reduction in the size of seats themselves is not the only way seats can become more cramped. Another way seats can become more cramped is for more seats to be sold so that passengers are more likely to feel crammed together than they would if fewer seats were sold.

So, what this choice says casts doubt on the officials' prediction by indicating that the seating may actually becoming more cramped even though the seat sizes haven't changed. After all, the passengers are likely feeling more cramped because they don't have empty seats around them as much.

In that case, reducing delays won't result in a reduction in complaints about cramped seating because the complaints are actually about cramped seating and not just a side effect of the delays.

Keep.

E) In Air Flight's surveys, the number of complaints about the airline's food has increased over the last five years.

This choice brings up another type of problem with Air Flight's flights that passengers have been complaining about more than they did five years ago, problems with the food. So, if issues other than seating issues, such as delays, could cause passengers to complain about seating, then it's possible that food issues, rather than delays, are causing passengers to complain about seating, in which case, there's reason to doubt the conclusion.

However, it's not really logical that people's disliking food would cause them to complain about seating. It makes sense that delays, which make people feel trapped and uncomfortable, would cause them to complain about seating, but unsatisfactory food probably wouldn't.

Also, (D) is a MUCH clearer weakener than this choice.

So, we can safely eliminate this choice and choose (D).

Correct answer:  D

sayan640 · Answer

D is the answer. May be before 5 years aurflight would sell fewer proportion of seats and there used to be ample seats lying vacant. The passengers would not feel cramped back then .
Times have changed and now Air Flight sells a significantly higher proportion of seats .
Hence the chances of passengers feeling cramped are high. The officials may fail in their prediction.

Posted from my mobile device

av722 · Answer

In Air Flight's regular customer surveys, complaints about flight delays have increased over the last five years, as have complaints about cramped seating. Flight delays have become more common, but Air Flight's seats are no smaller, so airline officials interpreted the increase in complaints about seating as a natural outcome of the annoyance at delays. The airline is planning to improve its on-time performance; if it succeeds, the officials predict that complaints about seating will fall again.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously challenges the officials' prediction?

A) Passengers are significantly more likely to report feeling cramped in their seats if their flight is more than twenty minutes late in boarding.
B) People find it more difficult to sit still in crowded quarters if they are feeling impatient.
C) Air Flight's passengers have, on average, more legroom on flights now than five years ago.
 D) Air Flight sells a significantly higher proportion of its seats now than it did five years ago. 
E) In Air Flight's surveys, the number of complaints about the airline's food has increased over the last five years.

A: this is in line with the argument. it may even strengthen it. It reinforces the cause and effect claim that delays cause seating complaints. 
B: This choice explains  why  they're feeling cramped, but it does nothing to break the cause and effect claim being made about delays causing seating complaints. 
C: While this might appear to weaken by implying that they're not actually as cramped as we think they are, complaints about cramped seating have still increased over the last five years according to the premise. 
D: Correct. If they sell a higher proportion of seats now than five years ago, it's possible that the seat cramping is happening  not  because of the delays but because more seats are being occupied. Here we introduce an alternative explanation for the cause and effect claim. 
E: This is irrelevant to the argument. the complaints about the airline's food have nothing to do with the claim about improving delays causing a decrease in the complaints about seating.

elle1717 · Answer

I was stuck between the right choice D and choice C.

Case against D - The passage suggests the size of the seats is the factor for feeling cramped. So how would more people affect the size of the seat? People wouldn't be more cramped whether or not the adjacent seats are occupied or not.

Case for C - If they're complaining about the legroom despite it improving, couldn't it suggest that the complaint is not just because of the annoyance at delays but another factor like worse legroom vs competitors? So if the delay issue is fixed, that still won't fix the legroom issue.

guddo · Answer

I’d go with D over C for one clean reason: the passage reports “cramped seating” complaints, not “seat size” complaints. Feeling cramped depends a lot on how full the cabin is, not just the physical width of your own seat.

Why D still works even if seat size is unchanged:

If more seats are sold, flights are fuller. Then people have fewer chances of an empty adjacent seat, less elbow and shoulder space, more crowding in the aisle and around bins, and generally less perceived personal space. So  cramped complaints can stay high even after delays improve , which directly challenges the prediction.

Why C is weaker:

If average legroom is higher now, that makes “cramped” complaints harder to attribute to real space constraints, but it does not give a concrete  ongoing  cause that would keep complaints high once delays improve. It mainly says the situation is better on one dimension, not why complaints won’t fall.

So your seat size point is too narrow. The relevant issue is  perceived  crowding, and D directly supplies that.

In Air Flight's regular customer surveys, complaints about flight

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In Air Flight's regular customer surveys, complaints about flight

Prep Toolkit

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