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VerbalCritical Reasoning

Free GMAT Critical Reasoning Practice Question

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Last year, a regional grocery chain replaced its main produce supplier. Over the twelve months following the switch, the total amount of produce that the chain's warehouses discarded as spoiled rose by nearly 40% compared with the twelve months before the switch. During that same period, the number of customer complaints about produce freshness logged through the chain's service line fell by nearly 40%. Both figures cover the same stores and the same time windows, and each is a full tally rather than an estimate.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the contrast between the rise in discarded produce and the drop in freshness complaints?

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Answer & Explanation

Correct answer

A

This is a resolve-the-paradox question. Two facts are given as true and seem to clash, so the credited answer must let both be true at once by supplying a hidden distinction, without contradicting either fact. Fact one: discarded, spoiled produce rose by nearly 40%. Fact two: freshness complaints fell by nearly 40%. The surface tension is that more spoilage usually signals worse produce, which should bring more complaints, not fewer.

The key is that the two figures measure different produce. Write-offs count produce that is removed from the supply, while complaints come only from produce that actually reaches customers on the shelf. (A) breaks the link between the two: because the new supplier delivers more often, staff can afford to pull and discard any declining item early, before it ever reaches the sales floor. That single mechanism raises the discard count, which matches fact one, and simultaneously improves what shoppers actually see, which lowers complaints and matches fact two. It is consistent with both facts and dissolves the apparent conflict, so it is correct.

(B) pushes the wrong way. Produce arriving closer to its peak of ripeness would spoil sooner once on the shelf, which points toward more freshness complaints, not fewer, so it deepens the puzzle rather than resolving it.

(C) explains only the drop in complaints, through a loyalty program whose members rarely file complaints of any kind, and says nothing about why discarded produce rose. It covers just one side of the contrast.

(D) is the most tempting trap because attacking the numbers feels like a quick way to dissolve the puzzle. But the stem states outright that each figure is a full tally rather than an estimate, so a claim that the complaint figures are estimates projected from a sample of calls flatly denies a fact the stem gives as true. A resolution may add information; it may not deny the data.

(E) explains only the rise in discarded produce, through the new supplier's lower per-case cost, and is silent on why freshness complaints fell. It is the mirror-image one-sided error to (C).

Only (A) keeps both facts intact while explaining how they coexist.