CR question14..

[evensflow]

Despite the fact that the health-inspection procedures for catering establishment are more stringent than those for ordinary restaurants, more of the cases of food poisoning reported to the city health department were brought on by banquets served by catering services than were brought on my restaurant meals.

 

Which of the following, if true, helps explain the apparent paradox in the statement above?

 

a. A significantly larger number of people eat in restaurants than attend catered banquets in any given time period.

b. Catering establishments know how many people they expect to serve, and therefore are less likely than restaurants to have, and serve, leftover food, a major source of food poisoning.

c. Many restaurants provide catering services for banquets in addition to serving individual meals.

d. The number of reported food-poisioning cases at catered baquets is unrelated to whether the meal is served on the caterer’s or the client’s premises.

e. People are unlikely to make a connection between a meal they have eaten and a subsequent illness unless the illness strikes a group who are in communication with one another.

 

Please provide a suitable explanation for your answer and rate the problem on scale of 1-5.

 

[dgajaria]

is it C?

[evensflow]

Same like me... ;)

 

The answer althoug is "E".

 

C seems to be close but the weight seems to be more on the "E" side, as the paradox gets the point of 2 groups (one eating at reastaurant and the other eating at banquet getting in touch with each other and therefore result in passing illness or vice versa.)

 

A little more thought...

[crackGmat]

All of evensflow postings are very good CR's. Prbably becoz I am getting all of them wrong or my reasoning is gone for a toss.

 

e. People are unlikely to make a connection between a meal they have eaten and a subsequent illness unless the illness strikes a group who are in communication with one another.

Please explain to me in this case why E is answer cause it says a group of people eating food. This group even though connected can be eating at a restuarant than at Caterers ??

 

R we not supposed to be specific in getting the answers in CR. :(

 

Pls help, my reasoning is :eek:

 

-shree

[gmat168]

I would answer E.

 

People at catered events are more likely to be in contact with one another afterwards (friends, friends of friends, family, etc) and thus are more likely to be able to say "Ah, ha! My illness came from that catered event."

 

However, in restaurants, people are rarely, if ever, in contact with one another except for those on the same table. I mean, you're not gonna call the people that ate at the next table and say, "Man, do you have stomach aches too???"

[dwivedys]

GMAT168 always answers before I get a chance to do so :-)

THat's why I end up giving just "another vote for E"

 

Just to add to GMAT168's explanation - E resolves the paradox by calling into question the method of arriving at the statistic that MORE BANQUET EATERS become ill despite stringent standards. E says that we don't have many complaints for restaurants simply because the people who eat in restaurants do not often do so in groups.

[isrocket]

The paradox lies on why the more stringent the health procedures, the more the reported food poisoning case. In fact the paradox may not be true and explained by E

that ppl are not clear from what is the source of getting food poisoning.

[vingmat]

evensflow,

i think (E) is NOT the answer and that © is the one.

 

Here's why: (E) introduces a subtle scope shift.

The argument proclaims that the Health Dept. gets more reported cases of food-poisoning from sources attributed to catering restaurants. (E) only talks about people's "group"-behavior attributed trends on the perceived causes. This need not be related to reporting stats. ie. even ppl. in isolation can well report.

 

© on the other hand gives a convincing expln. - that banquet food is served in large numbers by restaurants. Hence, the increase in cases could be attibuted to mass-scale excesses of restaurants.

 

Revert.

[ursula]

evensflow,

i think (E) is NOT the answer and that © is the one.

You probably won't get a response from evensflow - based on the date of the posts, he/she is probably well on the way to an MBA by now :D

 

I am quite certain that E is the answer, for the reasons stated by various posters. The sequence of events is something like this:

People eat bad food -> people get sick -> people make the connection between bad food and their illness -> people report a case of food poisoing

 

If people don't make the connection that bad food caused their illness, they'll never report a case of food poisoning. Answer E offers an explanation why people at banquets (who are more likely to know each other than random strangers in a restaurant) are more likely to make the connection that is necessary to report food poisoning as the source of their illness.

[vingmat]

Ursula, you have a point there. But, how would you refute ©...?

 

By the way, my G-day is 27 September. As I told you before, I got excellent results on the Powerprep. The issue that really perplexes me is how come I got 630, 640 on PR tests 3 and 4, (ya, took PR 4 after that 630 I told you and came up with a 640) after a 750 and 770 on the Powerprep.

Well, I think PR 3 and 4 have questions of far poorer quality, many with vague explanations unlike those in the Powerprep tests.

 

Anyway, now in the final lap of preparation and solely working with the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], the only book I had not touched until now....On the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] again, I have a strike rate of 100/100 for Quant, 28-29/30 for CR, 8-9/10 for SC.

 

Hope I can pull it off...

[ursula]

C is too weak to actually resolve the paradox (stricter guidelines for caterers, yet more reported food poisoning at catered banquets). If the restaurants that do catering actually had sloppy food preparation standards, you would expect to get food poisoning from their meals, regardless of where you eat them (banquet or at the restaurant). Also, if restaurants provide catering services, those services would presumably have to meet the guidelines that apply to catering services.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about your PR results at this point. Stick with [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] from now until your test - those questions really have the most accurate "GMAT flavour" and are of the best quality. Your hit rate on [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] should certainly give you plenty of confidence for the test. Good luck!

[gmatguy]

yup i agree with ursula... its E

 

becuase caterers attend to a large grp of ppl... and the statement E ""People are unlikely to make a connection between a meal they have eaten and a subsequent illness unless the illness strikes a group who are in communication with one another.""

[dreamz]

another vote for E

[omraan]

C is too weak to actually resolve the paradox (stricter guidelines for caterers, yet more reported food poisoning at catered banquets). If the restaurants that do catering actually had sloppy food preparation standards, you would expect to get food poisoning from their meals, regardless of where you eat them (banquet or at the restaurant). Also, if restaurants provide catering services, those services would presumably have to meet the guidelines that apply to catering services.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about your PR results at this point. Stick with [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] from now until your test - those questions really have the most accurate "GMAT flavour" and are of the best quality. Your hit rate on [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] should certainly give you plenty of confidence for the test. Good luck!

 

:upset: it URGENT, PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!:dejected:

hi there,

is there any OE for that?

Is it really an official GMAT question? if yes, what year?

I know E is correct, but why C is not? dont tell me that otherwise the number of food poisoning for restaurants would be great too.

cuz what if the food restaurants serve for their indoor customers and the food they serve in banquets differ in their quality?

then the food poisoning cases are in direct relation with the restaurants, while caterings may be considered responsible for them (since it happened in a banquet).

how can we be sure that C is incorrect plz????

[rajechP]

Yes, answer is E. In a banquet, a group eats together, out of which many of them would be knowing each other. Once one of them falls ill, he/she talks to others. If other also fell ill, they point out the source of food-poisoning to banquet food as the common point for them was banquet only. However if the food served in a restaurant to an individual was leftover food and it made him/her ill, the person cannot pin-point that it is that food that caused him/her ill as there are no other source to cross-check the fact.