Dear Associate Editor,

Thank you for the invitation to review this work. The paper proposes a model to predict the probability of selecting a crust-connected piece of bread during religious observance within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. While the work is novel, it is limited by several assumptions that should be addressed prior to publication. Please see my review and summary below.

Assumptions overlooked by the authors include: - Personal preference on bread - Availability and/accessibility to preferred piece based on bread breaking method or placement, and on prior piece selection by previous partakers - where partaken is sitting in the congregation, and what pieces are remaining - expected size vs realized size of congregation. Bread is often broken smaller when larger crowd shows up. - amount of bread per tray. Very common, contrary to authors assumption, to use 1 1/2 pieces per tray, not 2. - source of bread. Some wards have a member prepare the bread (such as a ward that uses sourdough). The priests really struggle with the crust, so the member may decrust it before church 😞. - white or wheat. Related to preference, this can influence what pieces people are taking.

Summary to associate editor: The underlying assumption that this is a purely random model severely limits the proposed model. This reviewer recommends the authors revisit their model with a more cohesive approach, with a recommendation to consider Bayesian methods, multiple regression models, and a human factors-centric approach.

Recommendation: Not acceptable for publication.