Q3 - Durth: Increasingly, businesses use direct

[john]

3. (C)
Question type: Analyze Argument Structure

Durth concludes that direct mail advertising is annoying and immoral. The basis for this claim is that direct mail leads to wasted paper in amounts that would be unconscionable if done by others. In other words, Durth starts from the premise that one result of direct mail, wasted paper, would be deemed immoral in a context other than direct mail, and concludes that direct mail is immoral.

(A) fails to note that Durth never considers an argument that direct mail is not immoral, and so never raises a counterexample.
(B) focuses on the issue of expanding direct mail from its present use, but Durth is arguing that direct mail is immoral and annoying now, not possibly in the future.
(D) confuses premise and conclusion; Durth doesn’t argue from the premise that direct mail is annoying, but reaches that judgment as a conclusion.
(E) is wrong because Durth never considers the effects, positive or negative, of other forms of advertising.


#officialexplanation

[cvfh17]

so pretty much a claim is a premise right?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

A claim can play any role in the argument. It could be a premise, it could be an intermediate conclusion, or main conclusion. It could event be an irrelevant piece of information.

The only thing it could not be is an assumption of the argument.

Hope that helps!

[seth.moreida]

Is B also incorrect because the passage says that "it would be CONSIDERED unconscionable," which implies that Durth does not necessarily himself believe that it would be unconscionable, whereas the answer choice B says that there WOULD be undesirable consequences? It seems as though saying that something would be "considered" to be immoral and saying that it actually would be are two different things. Is this also a way of eliminating B?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Is B also incorrect because the passage says that "it would be CONSIDERED unconscionable," which implies that Durth does not necessarily himself believe that it would be unconscionable, whereas the answer choice B says that there WOULD be undesirable consequences? It seems as though saying that something would be "considered" to be immoral and saying that it actually would be are two different things. Is this also a way of eliminating B?

Hey Seth, I believe you're saying that (B) is stated more strongly than than the stimulus. In this case, I don't see that is a valid ground for eliminating (B). While there is a difference between someone considering an action to be unconscionable and it being unconscionable, Durth's argument does suggest that Durth asserts that the action is unconscionable.

The issue with (B) is that it projects into the future an increase in using direct mail marketing, which Durth does not address.

Hope that helps!

[VendelaG465]

im a little confused by this part of the answer choice C: "in other contexts/would be deemed immoral in a context other than direct mail" is that referring to just the idea of paper being wasted in general? or what "other context" is this referring to? in the stimulus all we focus on is the waste of paper for direct mail advertising so im confused as to what "other context" means

[ohthatpatrick]

It's referring to the part in the last sentence where the author says,
"if anyone else wasted this much paper" .....

Someone else wasting that much paper would be some "other context" of wasting paper (it isn't direct mail advertising.)

Does that make sense?