In 2011, there were 50,000 fewer hotel room night bookings than in 2010.
Miami@50 books hotel rooms at bargain prices and rents apartments. Hotel owners are blaming them for fewer hotel room night bookings.
Miami@50 claims that they rented out only 8000 apartments (say, they have 8000 apartments in their data base)
So Miami@50 claims that 'economy is down' is the reason for fewer hotel room night bookings.

What will weaken the claim of Miami@50 (that economy is down is the reason for 50,000 fewer bookings)?

It is all about the numbers. Hotel owners claim 50,000 fewer nights booked. Miami@50 claims that they rented out only 8000 apartments (so that cannot make up for 50,000 fewer bookings). We need to find why 8000 apartments MAY make up for at least a big chunk of 50,000 fewer night bookings.


A. Miami@50 rents apartments at a much lower price then it rents hotel rooms.

Irrelevant. The cost is irrelevant. Even if the apartments were rented at much lower cost, only 8000 apartments were rented. It doesn't explain the 50,000 fewer nights.

B. Miami@50 rented out at least 8 times as many hotel room nights bookings as apartments.

Doesn't matter how many hotel room nights it booked. In total, hotel room nights booked were 50k fewer this year.

C. Most apartments in that Miami@50 rented out were rented out multiple times.

Correct. We are talking about hotel room nights i.e. the number of total nights booked in hotels. 8000 apartments just tells us how many apartments were rented. It doesn't tell us for how many nights they were rented. If each apartment was rented multiple times, they would account for many more nights than just 8000. Hence it weakens the claim of Miami@50. Apartment renting could be the reason for 50,000 fewer hotel night renting. We don't need to show that apartments were rented for 50,000 nights. If we can show that they were rented for a number much greater than 8000, that is enough to weaken Miami@50's claim.

D. Miami@50’s profit from renting out apartments was higher than it was for renting out hotel rooms.

Profits are irrelevant.

E. Most of Miami@50’s customers preferred renting an apartment to renting a hotel room.

Again irrelevant. We still know that only 8000 apartments were rented.

Answer (C)