Researchers recently asked dozens of shoppers

[joehurundas]

Which of the following most logically completes the argument?

Researchers recently asked dozens of shoppers, chosen at random coming out of a FoodBasket supermarket, what they had purchased. The prices of the very same items at the nearest ShopperKing supermarket were totaled and compared with the FoodBasket total. The ShopperKing totals averaged five percent higher than the FoodBasket totals. Nevertheless, this result does not necessarily show that shoppers at ShopperKing would save money overall by shopping at FoodBasket instead, since ______.

A. shoppers who shop regularly at a given supermarket generally choose that store for the low prices offered on the items that they purchase most often
B. for shoppers with more than 20 items, the ShopperKing totals averaged more than five percent higher than the FoodBasket totals
C. many shoppers consider factors other than price in choosing the supermarket at which they shop most regularly
D. there is little variation from month to month in the overall quantity of purchases made at supermarkets by a given shopper
E. none of the people who conducted the research were employees of the FoodBasket supermarket


I think the question is saying that a 5% higher margin in price total for SK (shooperKing) than it is for FB (FoodBasket) shouldn't be taken literally to mean costlier; so, don't rush to FB instead, since ---------.

A: says people patronize a particular shop because their favorite items are cheaper there. The statistics does not necessarily say goods are more expensive at SK than FB. Choice could float either way if their favorite items are in such shop.

B: Irrelevant- statistics not based on quantity of items bought.

C: factors other than pricing are irrelevant

D: Not about consistency of a specific shopper- irrelevant

E: out of scope because argument is not about integrity of the result, but about an additional premise required to support the conclusion.

(A) offers the best justification to not favor FB in purchase trend than SK; Please anyone with better explanations?

[nehajadoo]

A is the only option which indicates that prices at sk can still be lower than fb thus sk regular won't benefit in terms of savings by shopping at fb

[james.jt.wu]

Hi There,

I am not an instructor but hope I can help.

I think your explanation is fairly close. Let me take a crack at explaining it.

First, this is a Strengthen the Conclusion statement, so we're going to eliminate choices that are Weakening or Irrelevant.

Let's draw the conclusion:

Despite the fact the data show for the same basket of goods, SK is on average 5% higher than FB, this does NOT necessarily show shoppers at SK would save money OVERALL by shopping at FB.

I capped the word "Overall" because that's the key to answering this question.

Let's eliminate the other 4 first since thats actually pretty easy for this question:

B. Like you said, the trap here is that it went down "one level" into averages of different quantities of items when the assessment is done on an aggregate level. Perhaps even more importantly, this actually reinforces that SK is more expensive, thus weakening the conclusion.

C. Irrelevant - we're only caring about price here.

D. Irrelevant - variation has nothing to do with the comparison at hand, and also, variation will be there for both SK and FB and is thus not a useful differentiator between the two stores.

E. Irrelevant - if you really really want to stretch it, actually slightly weakens the conclusion since it shows that the data are unbiased (if FB people conducted the survey, they might've skewed the result to hurt SK)... but again this is a stretch. Either way it makes for a more answer.

Back to your question about why answer A is right. You pretty much got it. They asked people coming out of FB about the prices, and then compare to the prices of the same item in SK. (not sure if they actually asked shoppers coming out of SK too... doesn't look like it from the passage). Option A is essentially saying that shoppers at FB would be self-selecting only certain items that are cheapest across all markets. However, this doesn't show that OVERALL, across all goods in general, prices at FB are cheaper. In other words, the sample of items used in the study is not a representative sample.

Hope that helps :)

James

[RonPurewal]

Which of the following most logically completes the argument?

Researchers recently asked dozens of shoppers, chosen at random coming out of a FoodBasket supermarket, what they had purchased. The prices of the very same items at the nearest ShopperKing supermarket were totaled and compared with the FoodBasket total. The ShopperKing totals averaged five percent higher than the FoodBasket totals. Nevertheless, this result does not necessarily show that shoppers at ShopperKing would save money overall by shopping at FoodBasket instead, since ______.

A. shoppers who shop regularly at a given supermarket generally choose that store for the low prices offered on the items that they purchase most often
B. for shoppers with more than 20 items, the ShopperKing totals averaged more than five percent higher than the FoodBasket totals
C. many shoppers consider factors other than price in choosing the supermarket at which they shop most regularly
D. there is little variation from month to month in the overall quantity of purchases made at supermarkets by a given shopper
E. none of the people who conducted the research were employees of the FoodBasket supermarket


I think the question is saying that a 5% higher margin in price total for SK (shooperKing) than it is for FB (FoodBasket) shouldn't be taken literally to mean costlier; so, don't rush to FB instead, since ---------.

A: says people patronize a particular shop because their favorite items are cheaper there. The statistics does not necessarily say goods are more expensive at SK than FB. Choice could float either way if their favorite items are in such shop.

B: Irrelevant- statistics not based on quantity of items bought.

C: factors other than pricing are irrelevant

D: Not about consistency of a specific shopper- irrelevant

E: out of scope because argument is not about integrity of the result, but about an additional premise required to support the conclusion.

(A) offers the best justification to not favor FB in purchase trend than SK; Please anyone with better explanations?

there aren't too many of these fill-in-the-blank type arguments. some of them don't neatly fit into any of our existing categories for critical reasoning, but this one does: it's basically a STRENGTHEN question.
the difference between this problem and other strengthen problems, though, is the presence of an actual blank -- suggesting that there is some predictable way to fill in that blank. in other words, most Strengthen problems can have a variety of different approaches and ways to strengthen the argument and are therefore more difficult to predict, but the blank here suggests that there should be one, single (and therefore easier to predict) way in which to strengthen the argument.

in this case, the best way to proceed is to simplify and predict the answer.

SIMPLIFIED VERSION of the argument:
The stuff that people buy at FB costs more at SK. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that stuff costs more at SK in general.

faced with this simplified version of the argument, you could look at it and say, "oh hey, well, yeah -- if you're looking at the stuff people generally prefer to buy at FB, then there's a good chance that those are the specific items that cost less at FB".

this problem is actually a really good illustration of the great divide that exists between people's "real-world thinking" and people's "test thinking". in other words, people generally shut off the "common sense module" of their brains when attacking any sort of academic task, including standardized tests. for this type of problem, that's unfortunate -- most people who shop at drugstores/grocery stores on a regular basis, if they thought of this problem the same way they thought about real life, would be able to predict the answer to the problem without much effort. however, when those same people approach the problem from the "academic" point of view, all of a sudden the problem becomes much harder.

of course, this isn't to say that you should think about all gmat problems that way; for instance, if you take a common-sense approach to "draw the conclusion" problems, you're going to get into big, big trouble. however, if you can get yourself to think of STRENGTHEN/WEAKEN problems in the same way in which you'd think of these situations in the real world, you'll have a lot more insight into the problems.

[divineacclivity]

there aren't too many of these fill-in-the-blank type arguments. some of them don't neatly fit into any of our existing categories for critical reasoning, but this one does: it's basically a STRENGTHEN question.
the difference between this problem and other strengthen problems, though, is the presence of an actual blank -- suggesting that there is some predictable way to fill in that blank. in other words, most Strengthen problems can have a variety of different approaches and ways to strengthen the argument and are therefore more difficult to predict, but the blank here suggests that there should be one, single (and therefore easier to predict) way in which to strengthen the argument.

in this case, the best way to proceed is to simplify and predict the answer.

SIMPLIFIED VERSION of the argument:
The stuff that people buy at FB costs more at SK. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that stuff costs more at SK in general.

faced with this simplified version of the argument, you could look at it and say, "oh hey, well, yeah -- if you're looking at the stuff people generally prefer to buy at FB, then there's a good chance that those are the specific items that cost less at FB".

this problem is actually a really good illustration of the great divide that exists between people's "real-world thinking" and people's "test thinking". in other words, people generally shut off the "common sense module" of their brains when attacking any sort of academic task, including standardized tests. for this type of problem, that's unfortunate -- most people who shop at drugstores/grocery stores on a regular basis, if they thought of this problem the same way they thought about real life, would be able to predict the answer to the problem without much effort. however, when those same people approach the problem from the "academic" point of view, all of a sudden the problem becomes much harder.

of course, this isn't to say that you should think about all gmat problems that way; for instance, if you take a common-sense approach to "draw the conclusion" problems, you're going to get into big, big trouble. however, if you can get yourself to think of STRENGTHEN/WEAKEN problems in the same way in which you'd think of these situations in the real world, you'll have a lot more insight into the problems.

I agree with what you've written above but option A is contradicting the info in CR paragraph i.e. if people opt for a particular superstore over another one nearby for low prices of the items that they purchase most often then that "low pricing" should reflect on the survey/price comparison done or they're not saving money overall.

What I mean is that if A was right then:
person A goes to FB for cheaper big packs of chips and buys other stuff like milk, vegetables etc and the total is greater than what the total would be if the same purchase was made from SK, then the buyer is at loss, even if the chips are costlier at SK but still the total is lesser. So, the option A would contradict either of the following information given in the paragraph:
i) either the prices totaled more
ii) or the buyer didn't save

Please help me understand the flaw in my logic so that I can pick up the right answer on the test. thanks.

[jlucero]

The argument doesn't say that the average shopper spends more at FB. It says that they spend less there even though all of the products that people buy in total (and it doesn't say HOW MANY of these products they buy) would be cheaper at SK. Here's an example: people walking out of FB say they buy water, cereal, and eggs.

FB
water- $1
cereal- $5
eggs- $5

SK
water- $2
cereal-$1
eggs- $1

SK may look cheaper, but if people are buying 100 bottles of water, 1 box of cereal, and 1 package of eggs, then the trip to FB is still cheaper overall because of "the low prices offered on the items that they purchase most often"

[AbhilashM94]

How do I kill (B)?

I kinda used the same logic that one product maybe expensive, but from a bigger picture, the overall bill is cheaper.

[RonPurewal]

How do I kill (B)?

I kinda used the same logic that one product maybe expensive, but from a bigger picture, the overall bill is cheaper.

You may want to read that again. This time, take sides. Make it personal.

The point YOU're trying to defend here is...
this result does not necessarily show that shoppers at ShopperKing would save money overall by shopping at FoodBasket instead.
Make yourself a public-relations person for Shopper King. You're trying to defend Shopper King against the idea that its prices are higher.

Now, look at choice B again. Does it...
1/ help you defend Shopper King?
2/ make things look EVEN WORSE for Shopper King?

yep... #2. This choice does exactly the opposite of what you want it to do. It makes YOUR side of the argument look even LESS well supported.

"- If you make the text come alive"”"”by giving yourself a personal stake in the situation"”"”it's very, very easy to see that B is a wrong-way answer. (When something goes against YOU... well, it's hard not to notice.)
"- If the argument is just "black text on a white screen", this is not obvious at all.

[gmatkiller_24]

therefore, if I am not wrong, the logic of the correct choice A is that the sample is not representative (or the sample is biased)?

is that why you try to say? Ron

[RonPurewal]

actually you have to assume that the sample is "representative".
if the sample doesn't accurately reflect the general experience of the store's shoppers, then the data are completely meaningless.

[RonPurewal]

in general, a good test of your understanding is whether you can explain in simple terms why an answer is right or wrong. (you'll see me talking about "explain to a 9-year-old" a lot; this is the point.)

"explain choice A to a 9-year-old"
• people know that FB has the best prices on certain things.
• so, they go to FB (primarily) to buy those things.
• ...so it's not surprising that the prices of the same things are higher at the other stores.

if you feel the need to introduce fancy terms ("representative/biased sample"), then that probably means you don't fully understand what's going on.