Self-paced
Sales manager: Support Last year the total number of meals sold in our company's restaurants was much higher than it was the year before. █████████ █████████ ████ ███ █████ ██████████
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Sales Manager's Argument
The sales manager concludes that consumers find the company's meals desirable. How do we know? Because the total number of meals sold in the company's restaurants increased significantly since last year. The sales manager takes overall sales to be an indicator of the meals' desirability.
Accountant's Argument
The accountant concludes that the desirability of the company’s meals has actually decreased. The evidence is that all of the restaurants with sales figures for the prior two years show that fewer meals were sold per restaurant last year compared to the year prior. So the only way overall sales could have increased is because the company opened some new restaurants last year.
However, to get to the conclusion, the accountant assumes that desirability is the primary factor that affected sales in the last two years. Otherwise, there could be any number of other reasons why sales would fall at the established restaurants.
10.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████████ █████ ████ ████████ ███ ████████████ █████████
a
The company's restaurants ████ ████ ███████ ████ █████ █████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██████████ ███ ████ ███████
We don’t know whether these new dishes were desirable or not. Even if we did know, it wouldn’t weaken the accountant’s argument, since we don’t know what effect dropping these dishes had on sales.
b
Prior to last ████ █████ ███ ██ ███████ ████████ █████ ██ ███ █████████ ██████
A sustained downward trend in sales doesn't weaken the accountant's argument. In fact, without knowing more about why sales are declining, it doesn't make much difference at all.
c
Those of the █████████ ███████████ ████ ███ ████████ █████ █████ ████ ████ ███ ███ █████ █████ █████████ ██ ██████ ██ ███████ ██████████
Some restaurants increased sales without large discounts... so what? We still don't know how strong the connection between desirability and declining sales really is, so this doesn't help us.
d
Sales of the █████████ ████ █████████ ████ ███████████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ████████ █████ █████████
We’re not interested in specific meals because we don't know anything about their desirability—we still don't know how desirability has affected sales. This isn't relevant.
e
Most of the █████████ ███████████ ████ ████ ██ █████████ ██████████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ███ ████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ █████ █████████ ███████████ █ ██████ ███████ ███████ ██ ██████ ████ █████
This is an alternative explanation for the sales decline at the restaurants in question: it's a financial issue. This undermines the accountant's conclusion that desirability was the main factor.