TSIA2 Practice Test 1

A pricey dish on a restaurant menu often does its most important work without being ordered. Diners who see a $68 steak at the top of a page tend to judge a $34 pasta below it as reasonable, even if the pasta would have seemed expensive on its own. Researchers call this effect anchoring: the first number a person encounters becomes the reference point for every number that follows. Restaurant consultants report that adding one very expensive item can raise sales of the mid-priced items around it, even though few customers choose the costly dish itself. In this sense, the steak earns its place on the menu mainly by changing how other prices look.