Logical Reasoning

PT154 · S1 · Q21 Restaurant critic: Most people agree

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Restaurant critic: Most people agree that the food at Marva’s Diner is exceptional, while the food at the more popular Traintrack Inn is fairly ordinary.

Conclusion

It should come as no surprise that Marva's food is great will Traintrack's food is ordinary.

Evidence

Traintrack's has a more convenient location than Marva's, and it by itself is almost enough to guarantee a steady flow of customers.

Evaluate

This is a super tricky conclusion to deal with, "the discrepancy should come as no surprise" is a mouthful. Much of the time, the conclusion on a Principle-Strengthen question would be something like "impermissible" / "should be avoided", and so we predict an answer that looks like such-and-such → impermissible

Here we'd be predicting something like such-and-such → discrepancy should come as no surprise

We might want to approach that conclusion with a more flexible mindset. What are some other ways to say "X should come as no surprise"? - X is what you'd expect - X frequently occurs - it's natural for X to occur

Because Traintrack's has a more convenient location than Marva's We would expect Traintrack's to have worse food than Marva's

or, equivalently

Because Marva's has a less convenient location than Traintrack's We would expect Marva's to have better food than Marva's

Goal

We need to pick an answer that establishes a clear connection between how convenient your location is (whether it guarantees customers) and how good your food is.

If we get a little gist-y and real world with this, our author is just saying,

21.

Which one of the following is a principle that, if valid, most helps to justify the restaurant critic's reasoning?

  1. The best way for a

    Mismatch

    This doesn't help explain the discrepancy, since the restaurant with the improved product (i.e. the exceptional food) is the restaurant with a less steady flow of customers.

    1% picked this

  2. Any restaurant can become more

    Bad Conclusion Match

    This connects popularity to location, which is already established in the Premise itself (more convenient location by itself is almost enough to guarantee a steady flow of customers). We need to connect location / steady flow of customers to quality of food.

    37% picked this

  3. The quality of the food

    Mismatch

    This would make our situation more surprising, not explain the discrepancy. Marva's has higher quality food but is less popular than Traintrack's.

    1% picked this

  4. Correct

    A business will improve its

    Why this is right

    This looks like don't need to improve won't improve product to attract customers ? product This principle helps justify the cynical conclusion: "It should come as no surprise that Traintrack has mediocre food, given that its location alone gives it a built-in flow of customers. After all, if you don't need to be good to attract customers, then you'll be fine with average."

    Skill tested: Principle-Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    44% picked this

  5. There is no relationship between

    Opposite

    The author thinks that there is a relationship, just an inverse relationship. She sees the relationship between quality and popularity like this: The more popular you are (from built-in traffic) the less likely you'd be to have exceptional food.

    16% picked this

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