Self-study
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.
9.
If the sales figures cited ██ ███ ██████████ ███ ███ █████ ███████ ███ ████ █████████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ██ █████
a
The company opened ██ █████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ██████
The sales manager says overall sales have increased, but the accountant points out that sales at every established restaurant have decreased. This is only possible if there are new restaurants to boost the overall sales figures.
b
The company's meals ███ ████ ███████████ ████ ████ ████ █████
We only know about the change in sales within this one company. To determine whether the meals are competitive, we would need to know about their competition as well.
c
The quality of ███ █████████ █████ ███ ███ ████████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ██████
The sales manager and the accountant both focus on sales and desirability. Neither one gets into the objective quality level of the company's meals.
d
The prices of ███ █████████ █████ ████ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ██████
Neither the sales manager nor the accountant addresses the prices of the company's meals. It's entirely possible for sales to rise, fall, or stay the same without any change in price, so we can't make this inference.
e
The market share ████████ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████ ████ ████ █████
Much like (B), we would only be able to make this inference if we had information about the market more generally. But we only have statistics about this particular company, so we don't know its market share.