Question

Elsa and her friend Olaf are co-owners of the world's largest ice cream truck, offering their customers the choice of 256 different flavors of ice cream. The truck, which has been built from an 18-wheeled tractor-trailer, houses the 256 tubs of ice cream in the refrigerated trailer. The side of the truck displays a large list of the 256 names of the different flavors, which the customers then name when they place their orders.

Business is booming and the duo needs to serve their customers quickly. However, in order to quickly find the right tub of ice cream out of such a large collection, Elsa and Olaf both agree that they need to use an efficient solution. Elsa suggests that they organize the flavors alphabetically while Olaf suggests that they organize the flavors in order from his favorite to his least favorite.
Which of the following solutions would allow these ice cream peddlers to find the customers' chosen flavors the most efficiently?
Option 1: Organize the flavors alphabetically.
Option 2: Organize the flavors in order from Olaf's favorite to least favorite.
Option 3: Organize the flavors by color.
Option 4: Organize the flavors by size.

Answer 1

Organizing the flavors alphabetically is the most efficient option, as it provides a predictable and easily understandable system for both employees and customers to locate specific ice cream flavors.

Step-by-step explanation:

The question presents a scenario where two co-owners of the world's largest ice cream truck want to find the most efficient method to organize their 256 different flavors of ice cream. Among the options given, organizing the flavors alphabetically would likely be the most efficient method. This is because it provides a consistent system that both the employees and the customers can easily understand and follow. An alphabetical system ensures that each flavor has a designated and predictable place, reducing the time spent searching for any given flavor.

Organizing by Olaf's preferences could lead to inefficiency, as personal preference is not a universally understood system. Organizing by color may seem visually appealing but does not aid in quickly identifying a specific flavor, and organizing by size is impractical as most tubs of ice cream are likely to be of similar sizes and does not help in distinguishing between flavors.