Q4 - For next year, the Chefs' Union has

[hyewonkim89]

Will someone help me eliminate D and understand why C is the answer?

I thought if average dollar amount of the raises were the same between the two unions, it would strengthen the author's argument since 10 percent of the same amount is greater than 8 percent.

Thanks in advance!

[patrice.antoine]

Watch out for detail creeps with this question. The conclusion in our argument is that the average dollar amount of raises that X union requested for NEXT year is greater than that of the raises requested by Y union.

(D) compares dollar amount raises of LAST year. We don't care about last year. It will do nothing to help our conclusion.

As a result, (C), by showing a difference in current average salaries is our correct answer choice.

HTH!

[rinagoldfield]

Great explanation, Patrice. I’ll just add a bit to what you said.

Here’s the argument core for this problem:

The Chef’s Union requested a 10% raise for next year, while the Hotel Manager’s Union requested an 8% raise for next year

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The Chef's Union requested more money (a higher "dollar amount") than the Hotel Manager’s Union did.

What’s the flaw? Well, percents don’t tell us much about actual amounts. We need to know more about how much chefs and hotel managers actually make to know who requested the bigger raise.

(example: let’s say the chefs currently make around $10,000 a year. In that case, the average 10% chef raise will be $1,000. But if the hotel managers make around $50,000 a year, then the average 8% hotel manager raise will be $4,000. In this case, the Hotel Manager's Union requested a much higher "dollar amount" than the Chef’s Union did. )

(C) strengthens the argument. If the chefs generally make more money than the hotel managers, then, yes, their raise will have a higher "dollar amount."

(A) is irrelevant. The number of members in each union has no bearing which union requested a higher "average dollar amount."

(B) is also irrelevant. The argument core concerns the unions’ requests, not whether or not the requests will be granted.

(D) deals with last year, like Patrice said. We’re concerned with this year.

(E) also deals with the past rather than the present.

[WaltGrace1983]

Would (C) also be a sufficient assumption that could justify the conclusion? It certainly looks like it.

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, (C) seems to lock it in completely (pretty weird for a correct answer to Strengthen ... probably a symptom of this being only a question 4).

10% of a bigger avg. dollar amount
is definitely a bigger dollar amount than
8% of a smaller avg. dollar amount