Q13 - The television network's advertisement

[hyewonkim89]

I had a hard time with this question.

P1: TV network's ad for its new med drama misrepresents what the program is like.

P2: ppl who tune in to the 1st episode based on false expectations will be unlikely to watch subsequent episodes.

C: the program won't attract the sort of viewers likely to continue watching the program as the ad that the program's producers favored.

I see that the assumption here is that the advertisement the program's producers favored would not have misrepresented the program, which is shown in (B).

Negation would destroy the argument as well (The advertisement that the program's producers favored would have grossly misrepresented what the program would be like).

Under the time pressure, I had a hard time between (B) and (D).

Is (D) wrong because it's reversed?

Thanks in advance!

[ywan1990]

@ hyewonkim89 (D) is not necessary. We only need that the advertisement favoured by the program's producer attracts MORE viewers than the one actually shown. We don't need the 'almost all' part in the choice. Hope this helps.

[rinagoldfield]

Hi Hye,

P1: TV network's ad for its new med drama misrepresents what the program is like.

P2: ppl who tune in to the 1st episode based on false expectations will be unlikely to watch subsequent episodes.

C: the program won't attract the sort of viewers likely to continue watching the program as the ad that the program's producers favored.

I see that the assumption here is that the advertisement the program's producers favored would not have misrepresented the program, which is shown in (B).

Fabulous breakdown of the core, and I agree with the flaw you identified.
Our task find a necessary assumption, which, as you state, (B) effectively identifies.

(D) doesn’t exactly reverse the argument"”we don’t know how many will tune in again after the "grossly" misrepresentative ad"”but it certainly isn’t a necessary assumption. The author, after all, assumes that the producers wanted a better, more honest ad, not a terrible, ineffective one.

Hope that helps.

[jan]

why can't answer choice A work? if it is negated it would be that most viewers don't watch the advertisement and hence they would not have the false expectations that the argument assumes there to be. Assuming that is the reason the argument bases its argument on, it seems to be crucial to be supported by the assumption..
Is it because one can have seen the advertisement even though one did not tune in to the program because of the advertisement?

[maryadkins]

Good question! And yes.

If we negate (A), it reads, as you say, "Most viewers who watch the first episode DON'T do so because of the ad." Well, okay, but are they more likely to keep watching if they saw the different ad, or not? Negating (A) doesn't really do anything to argument, because the point of this argument is that fewer people who watched expecting one thing and got another would keep watching than if they saw another ad.

Basically, think about it like this. The point isn't whether they watched the ad and therefore watched the program or not. Some could have tuned in without even seeing the ad. The point of this argument is that the producers' ad was BETTER at representing the program... and we have nothing to base that on.

(B) brings in the "better" ad and tells us it doesn't have the bad qualities of the one that aired. This is necessary.

(C) is like (A). Okay...but what about the people who did? That's who we're talking about. Maybe only 3 people in the whole world watched episode 1, and (C) tells us 2 of them didn't watch it because they saw the ad. Fine, but maybe that 1 other person who did see the ad won't keep watching since it misrepresented the show. And the question is, would he/she keep watching if the ad had been different? We still don't know...so (C) misses the point.

(D) is too extreme. We don't need it to be "almost all."

(E) is likewise too broad.

[pewals13]

I was worried on this one that I wasn't seeing some sort of numbers/percentages assumption.

I think this one ultimately comes down to an understanding of the precise wording of the conclusion.

"The network's advertisement will not as effectively attract the sort of viewers likely to continue watching the program as would the advertisement the program's producer's favored"

(B) is the only answer choice that you need to assume in order to conclude that the producer's ad would be more effective

(D) is wrong becuase even if less than half of the viewers who tuned into the first episode would tune in to subsequent ones if the ad favored by the producers was used, it gives you no idea whether the ad is more or less effective than the actual advertisement

[shirleyx]

Here is my attempt to break down the argument, find a flaw, and then go to the answer choices...

[network's ad isn't as good as the producer's ad]
because
- network's ads misrepresent

flaw: not exactly sure, but there is a missing link between "misrepresenting" and "not being a good enough ad"

the choices;

(A) So what, this is just about a premise, not the relationship between the premise and conclusion
(B) sounds good, leave for now-- talks about misrepresenting and advertising
(C) So what, again just talking about a premise.
(D) yeah, but this does not have to be true. .. and this proves the premise using the conclusion... sort of like reverse argumentation?? i dunno
(E) "loyal viewers" -- who cares about them

so to confirm the correct answer,

if we negate (B), we get that the producer's ads [MISREPRESENT] the program.. WELL if this is true, the conclusion that one is better than the other doesn't hold as well.

[donghai819]

Hi teachers,

My question here would be what kind of role a semicolon plays in a regular argument. I thought the argument was clear after reading first two sentences. But then I was confused by the semicolon and the "false expectation". I was forced to find what the "false expectation" mean s here, and it turned out that I had to move on after spending almost 2 mins.

Any explanation on "semicolon" or the "false expectation" would be highly appreciated!

Thank you.

[maryadkins]

A semi-colon means "here is a continuation of/elaboration on what I just said." Anything that comes after a semi-colon is a continuation of the previous part, or an example of it.

In this case, the reason people are not going to keep watching is that they start watching it with the false expectation that it is one kind of TV show based on the new advertisement when, in fact, it's not what the advertisement makes it look like. More generally, a false expectation is an expectation that turns out not to be correct.

[ganbayou]

I chose A because of the word *most*. it sounds the ad had huge influence or better influence bc most ppl started to watch it due to the ad..anyone can explain this part?

Is A actually weaken the argument if Most stated to watch (and they may continue to watch it) and if the ad leads Most ppl to watch it&continue to watch it, it can mean the ad is actually efficient?

[erikwoodward10]

Is D a sufficient assumption to the argument's conclusion?

[andrewgong01]

Is D a sufficient assumption to the argument's conclusion?

I disagree this would be a SA.

I don't think so because it still says nothing about wether or not the producer's ad is "better" than the network's ad. This argument makes a relative comparison between the two ads. So it could be that out of 100 viewers, the network's ad causes only 10 people to return and the producer's ad causes 11 people to return and still be in line with the conclusion . Or it can also be extreme, the network's ad caused 1 person to return whereas the producer's ad causes 99 people to return. The conclusion still holds and everything seems to be in line but consider this:

The Network's ad caused 98 people to return whereas the producer's ad caused 97 people to return --> this does not violate choice "D" since almost all people returned in a producer ad's world but even more returned in the network ad's world but it destroys the argument here since the answer choice does not make the comparison between the two ads clear.

I think a SA for this would be "PRoducer's ads are always more effective in keeping viewer loyalty than network's ad because producer ads never mislead the public" and to make it even more air tight we can say loyalty is determined solely by integrity in the ads (but this seems to over do).

By this logic, a strengthener could either boost the premise (rare) or strengthen the links.
For example, producer ads are always able to hold people's attention better [hence people actually watch the full ad] or the NA in the answer choice actually strengthens it to "Producer ads do not distort the show"; it is not enough to prove for sure producer ads are better (what if no one ever watches producer ads or producer ads have other negative issues ) but helps the argument

Weakener could just be the opposite of the NA and say something like "Programers have a propensity for distorting ads to attract media attention"

Justify Answer Choice would probably either be a strengthener or a SA in this case like "The sole metric for if people are more likely to be loyal is if the ad they watched is honest" or "People do not watch a show unless they see an ad first and the ad is the main factor affecting expectations " but need not fully allow the argument to stand as airtight

[EmilyL849]

Dear, Patrick!

I struggled with this question, I panicked

I was down to (B) and (C) and I understood the conclusion was about a relative ineffectiveness of TV Ad in attracting quality viewers compared to that favored by producers.

With this relativity issue in mind, (B) sounded too strong for a necessary assumption question.
I thought the Ad that producers favored just needed to misrepresent LESS than the TV ones. It was not necessary that they do not misrepresent at all. However, the author is concluding that one is less effective than the other, because the former has a negative quality. He must assume the other one is LESS likely to have it. And in here, “grossly” misrepresent means the Ads producers want definitely have this bad quality. so, even if it is a bit strongly worded, (B) is a needed assumption. Or are strong words (would not have) not an issue here?

On the other hand, I misunderstood (C) as saying “most of those who watched the first episode did not become loyal viewers because of TV Ad.” After negation, I thought ‘if most people who watched the first episode became loyal viewers as a result of TV ads, it means Ads were effective.’ And this seemed to weaken the argument. Although that still leaves open the possibility that Ads favored by Producers are more effective, if over half of people who tuned into the first episode became loyal viewers due to the TV ad, this seems to weaken the argument. Would this be a necessary assumption?

And also, my understanding of why the correct negation of (C) does not weaken the argument is as follows. ‘Okay, most people who watched the first episode and became loyal viewers DID tuned in as a result of the TV ad.’ We don’t know how large this group is. What if this group (those who watched the first ep. and now loyal viewers) is really small? Then, it is consistent with the conclusion that TV Ad is less effective compared to Ad favored by producers.’

Are there any flaws in my reasoning?

Thank you so much for helping me out. I really appreciate every one of your insights!

[matt@lsatcracked.com]

Argument or Statements? Argument.

Conclusion: Highlight starting after "Thus" and ending with "favored;"

Type of conclusion: Comparative. The argument says that X is worse than Y.

Evaluate: Bad argument. The argument says that X is worse than Y but tells us nothing about Y. For all we know, Y could be worse than X or at least equally as bad. In fact, it could have the exact same flaw as X.

Articulate Flaw: Assumes that X is inferior to Y merely because X contains a given flaw/inadequacy.

Stem: Necessary Assumption. Pre-phrase is generally not high ROI for this question type, but here the flaw is very obvious since no facts about Y have been given. It's therefore more likely we can predict the assumption. Expect to see an answer choice saying that the advertisement favored by the producers would not have grossly misrepresented what the program is like (the same flaw that X has).


Answer Choices

A. Not necessary. The argument claims that Y would have been more effective than X, but it never says anything about either one of them having to be responsible for "most" of the viewers that tune in.

B. Correct. What we expected. Negate to confirm: Y might have grossly misrepresented. If Y might have the exact same flaw as X, why are we saying Y is better?! Thus, the argument is completely destroyed. When the negation of a necessary assumption choice destroys (ie weakens) the argument, you have the right answer.

C. Not necessary. Confusing and hard to parse under timed pressure. The dirty way of eliminating this is that because the conclusion is comparative, you don't need to assume anything negative about X unless it's being compared to Y. Students are tempted by this answer choice because it seems like we have to assume something bad about X, but that's not the case. It just has to be comparatively worse than Y.

The cleaner, more analytically precise reason to get rid of this is because it's mathematically not required by the argument. Even though most people who do watch the episode based on false expectations will be "unlikely" to return (ie less than 50% will return), it could be the case that this is the only way that any person found out about the show.

Example: 100 people see the ad, 100 watch, 40 return and become loyal viewers. In this example (consistent with the premises), all of the show's eventual loyal viewers tuned into the show as a result of the initial advertisement. We just negated D (massively) and yet it did not destroy the argument (Y could have had a much higher retention than 40 of 100).

D. Not necessary. This is far too high of a bar for Y to be required to clear. Y simply needs to be better than X--it does not need to pass any other test such as achieving something close to a 100% return rate.

E. Not necessary. We only care about the scope of the conclusion which is that Y would have been "more effective" than X. We don't need to assume that more than 50% of eventual loyal viewers see the first episode. Negate that to 40% and there's still the possibility that Y would be more effective than X in converting a higher proportion of those 40% of viewers.