Reasoning, It says Answer is A. But C sounds right. help pls

[anil.texas]

Sales at a local sandwich shop have been declining steadily since a health food restaurant opened its doors for business on the same block three months ago. The owner of the sandwich shop concludes that the best way to raise sales back to prior levels is to offer special sandwich prices that compete with the low prices at the health food restaurant.

Which of the following assumptions helps to justify the owner’s conclusion?


a. Local consumers prefer the food at the sandwich shop to the food at the health food restaurant.

b. Sales at the sandwich shop reached an all-time high six months ago.

c. The sandwich shop’s prices are currently higher than those of a similar shop located in a neighboring town.

d. The sandwich shop does not currently offer any healthful food items.

e. The health food restaurant is running its special prices as a temporary promotion and will be raising its prices at the end of the year.

[kyle_proctor]

Hi:

I will give it a shot...

What do we know:


1) We have a new health food store
2) We have an established sandwich shop
3) Sales at the sandwich shop have been declining since the opening of the new health food store.

At this point you should be asking WHY???

4) Sandwich shop owner predicts sales will return to historical levels if sandwiches are priced at more competitive levels.

To me, the sandwich shop owner assumes that consumers still prefer the taste of the sandwiches but instead choose the health food store because of pricing alone.

So, to help justify the sandwich shop owner's response, we must assume that consumers DO IN FACT prefer the sandwiches. If the sandwich prices were to drop, the owner's reasoning goes, consumers will return to his shop.

So, "A" is the best option here.


C is incorrect because it is not relevant to the conclusion drawn in the argument. While it might be a reason for the decline in sales at the shop, the argument is focused solely on the health food store and its impact to the sandwich shop's business.


In short, only A helps justify the sandwich shop owner's claim. If he lowers prices and, consumers do indeed prefer his sandwiches, then most likely his claim is accurate.

[anil.texas]

Thank you for the reply. I am little convinced by the explanation in your post. For me it's kind of tricky, I have to get used to these. Just started the preparation.

[tim]

thanks; let us know if there are any further questions on this one..

[asharma8080]

Hello,

I picked B. Why is this not relevant? I thought the special prices of the health food restaurant are lower than that of the other restaurant and therefore the plan of reducing the prices would work. Did I make a technician mistake here?

B. The health food restaurant is running its special prices as a temporary promotion and will be raising its prices at the end of the year.

[RonPurewal]

Hello,

I picked B. Why is this not relevant? I thought the special prices of the health food restaurant are lower than that of the other restaurant and therefore the plan of reducing the prices would work. Did I make a technician mistake here?

B. The health food restaurant is running its special prices as a temporary promotion and will be raising its prices at the end of the year.

please clarify. you said (b), but you've listed the text of choice (e) here.

by the way, remember that this is an ASSUMPTION question. it should be pretty clear that the statement you've listed here is not an assumption (remember that an assumption is something that's actually NECESSARY, not just "something that would help").