PT57, S3, Q17 Consumer: If you buy a watch at a department

[giladedelman]

17. (D)
Question Type: Assumption
A department store will give a refund if a watch stops working the day after it’s bought, as long as it has not been used differently from the way it was intended to be used. By that standard, the consumer argues, the jewelry store, though not a department store, should give him a refund because his watch stopped working the day after he bought it. But wait: he doesn’t say anything about how he used the watch. Maybe he went swimming with it on, or tied it to a yo-yo _ who knows? His argument only works (sort of _ he never does explain why the jewelry store should follow department store standards) if we assume he didn’t use the watch improperly. Answer (D) identifies this necessary assumption.

Since the question asks for a necessary assumption, the negation test should work here. Let’s try it: "The customer did use the watch in a way contrary to the way in which it was intended to be used." Does this wreck his argument that he should get a refund? You bet!

(A) is irrelevant. No one is talking about what a store should sell.
(B) is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether the watches would work for the same length of time.
(C) is tempting, but it’s out of scope: a product not performing as the purchaser expected it to is a much broader standard than a watch dying the day after it’s bought. Furthermore, how do we know the watch did not perform as the purchaser expected?
(E) is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether the watch was new or old.