Intermediate Microeconomics and Its Application 12th Edition by Walter Nicholson,Christopher Snyder

Exercise 27

Julia visits her local grocery store to buy a jar of jam. She is overwhelmed to see the twenty-four varieties shown in Figure there.
a. Suppose she makes her decision by evaluating every pairwise comparison among the twenty-four varieties. How many comparisons does she have to make, and how long will it take her if she requires 1 second for each comparison?
b. Suppose she uses a different system for making her decision. First, she considers each of the separate categories separately and m the pair-wise comparisons just within the category to find the best. Then, she takes the best from each category and makes all the pairwise comparisons among them. Has she reduced the number of comparisons and total decision time using this system?
Figure Classifying Jame to Solve the Paradox of Choice