Q13 - If retail stores experience a decrease in revenues

[kumsayuya]

Hi, this one didn't have an explanation and thought I'd give it a shot. Got down to (B) and (C), and ended up picking (C) which is the correct response, but I could see how (B) could be an attractive answer choice - so, I'll explain why what i believe makes it an incorrect answer choice.

After reading the stimulus, I'd imagine most of us would have a formal logic chain drawn out, and mine was something like this:

DR (decrease revenues) ---> AC ( attitudes changed) ---> celebrate

and also another arrow coming off of the DR--->prices too high ----> salaries not kept pace.

We are told that salaries have indeed kept pace. This means that we must be able to read this formal logic chain, backward, and since the necessary condition has failed for salary not kept pace (because it HAS kept pace), we know prices weren't too high, and there was not a decrease in revenues during this holiday season.

Okay so with this, I felt pretty confident going into the answer choices.

(A), (D), and (E) all speak about a change in attitude, but we actually cannot infer anything about the attitudes. Maybe they changed, maybe they didn't. We aren't given this information. On this basis, I eliminated these three answer choices pretty quickly.

After this, I was stuck between (B) and (C) for a while, but in parsing out the language, I found that the term found in (B) "retail sales" (has a decline) wasn't the same as decrease in REVENUES. The way in interpret revenues in this AC is the total amount of money gained from the holiday season. Retail sales, I think, is referring to how many items were sold, or, a different measure than what revenues are. If retail sales did indeed decrease, what does this mean for revenues? Well, since this is a MBT, it means nothing. It could mean revenue went up, or revenue went down, the point is we dont know.

(C) on the other hand is found directly in our chain from earlier. If salaries did keep pace, then we know that prices weren't too high for people this holiday season, which is what this answer choice says almost verbatim.

I think that referring back to the stimulus when you're stuck between two answer choices is probably the best way to go, rather than weighing them against eachother. It allowed me to see the shift in terms here, and allowed me to confidently pick (C).

If anyone has anything to add about why (B) was wrong, it'd be appreciated.

[db_8400]

Answer choice B would not be correct b.c we cant infer that it wont experience a decrease in "retail sales" we only know information about salaries which have kept pace with the rising prices which leads us to C, but remember the argument says IF retail stores experience a decrease then EITHER attitudes have changed OR prices have risen we only know one what about the other? Just b/c salaries have kept pace doesn't mean it will not experience a decrease and doesent mean that it will experience a increase in revenue.

I kinda agree with you on the "retail sales" in answer choice B, I guess that was put there to help us eliminate it in a weird way revenue and retail sales same thing? Maybe but the best way to eliminate this in my opinion was b/c we cant infer this.