The following memorandum is fromthe business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants.

"Butter has now been replaced bymargarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern UnitedStates. Only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that anaverage of 98 people out of 100 are happy with the change. Furthermore, manyservers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do notcomplain when they are given margarine instead. Clearly, either these customerscannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term ’butter’ to referto either butter or margarine. Thus, we predict that Happy Pancake House willbe able to increase profits dramatically if we extend this cost-saving changeto all our restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well."

Write a response in which you discusswhat questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether theprediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure toexplain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate theprediction.

题目解析

Step One

文章共5句话，各自的核心意思是：

1、HPH在西南的餐厅用人造黄油替代了天然黄油;

2、2%的顾客投诉，所以剩下的人都很开心;

3、服务员报告说顾客并没有抱怨;

4、顾客要么分不清两种黄油，要么用butter统指两者;

5、所以措施要推广到东南和东北地区。

Step Two

文章的结构是：

1 推导出 2、3 推导出 5.

4 是对于2、3的解释

Step Three

寻找逻辑错误

a. 数据模糊：2%的顾客不一定少

b. 偷换概念：2%的顾客抱怨不代表98%的顾客开心;

c. 数据模糊：“许多”服务员，到底是多少，以及服务员报告是否中立客观;

d. 非此即彼：顾客不抱怨，要么因为分不清，要么用butter指代两者;

e. 整体个体：西南地区的做法要推广到东南、东北地区;

f. 利润问题。

Conclusion

本题相当easy。题目结构清晰，逻辑错误明显，可选择余地大。在考场上碰到本题的同学，都应该觉得轻松才对。

本题也是一道经典老题，所以在新G考试中不断出现，相当高频。因此值得大家花一点时间思考。