Q17 - Consumer: If you buy a watch

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Store should give me a refund for the watch.
Evidence: even though BJ is not a dept store, if you buy a watch at dept store and only use it as intended and the watch stops the next day, you get a refund. The watch I bought at BJ's stopped working the next day.

Answer Anticipation:
Couple things missing here:
1. Why does BJ's need to follow a rule that dept stores follow, if BJ is not a dept store? The author is assuming that BJ's should follow at least some rules that apply to department stores.
2. According to the dept store policy, in order to give a refund, we need to know that you used the watch only as intended and it stopped working the next day. We know the watch stopped working the next day, but we don't know whether the customer used the watch only as it was intended.

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) The author's argument is only concerned with whether or not he should get a refund, so this rule about "whether or not a store should sell something" is completely out of scope.

(B) Although the author needs to assume that BJ will adhere to at least one refund policy that dept stores do, he doesn't need to assume anything about BJ's watch quality being comparable to a dept store's.

(C) If you were using Sufficient Assumption brain and you assumed that "a watch that stops working the next day" = "a product that didn't perform as the purchaser expected", then you would like this answer, since it would guarantee you that the author should get a refund. But this is Necessary Assumption, and we can't accuse the author of assuming something stronger/broader than what he needs to assume. This conditional rule says that EVERY SINGLE TIME a product doesn't perform as expected, the seller should refund the money. The author is only concerned about whether he deserves a watch refund from BJ's. So he doesn't need to assume such a sweeping rule as this.

(D) Yes! If we negate this, we get "the customer DID use the watch in a way contrary to how it's intended to be used" … that cripples the argument because part of the refund policy the customer is citing involves that the buyer used the product "ONLY in the way it was intended".

(E) Nothing in the argument specifies new vs. used, so the author doesn't need to assume anything about that.

Takeaway/Pattern: There were two big gaps we could have anticipated: "Why should BJ's follow some dept store's rule?" and "Did the author use the watch only as intended?" They rewarded us with the latter. The trap answer of (C) probably tempts many people, if they aren't clear on the fact that we can't go overboard when selecting a Necessary Assumption answer.

#officialexplanation

[perng.yan]

Again, my initial response was to choose (D)... because that seemed the logical/normal thing that most people would want to know...

however.. the part about "even though they themselves are not a department store" threw me off and I thought that the answer choice was supposed to show how Bringham's Jewelry and a department store are comparable so that this customer could make the claim that.. even though BJ and a department store are different, BJ SHOULD give a refund.

even if the customer used it like how it was intended.. BJ is not a department store and doesn't need to adhere to that rule.

Therefore I chose (B), because it links how BJ and the department store both sell watches that SHOULD last longer if they are used in the intended way.


Thanks again.

[bbirdwell]

Here're the premises in a nutshell:

Get a watch at a department store, use it as it is intended to be used. If it stops working next day, get a refund.

BJ is not a department store.
Bought a watch there, it stopped working next day.

Conclusion: Should get a refund.

I see two gaps. One, as you said, is that BJ should act like a department store. The other is very important, though. If you look closely, you'll see that the department store example requires "intended use," and the evidence regarding BJ's never says that the consumer used it in the intended way.

It's as if the evidence says:
use as intended & stops working next day --> refund

and the conclusion says:
stops working next day --> refund

What's missing? What (D) says.

(B) is not correct because it doesn't matter how long the watches can be "expected" to work. We have no evidence as to how long either of the watches are expected to last, and that doesn't matter anyway. Maybe a department store watch is expected to last 10 years and BJ watch is expected to last 5. It doesn't affect our argument about "intended use" and next-day refunds.

[perng.yan]

hm... it's hard not to get bogged down by useless info and thinking about things that don't really apply. I think I'll need to eliminate answer choices that like more aggressivley and stick to the strong and obvious ones like (D)

thanks for answering these nitpicky questions.

[bbirdwell]

No problem! You are absolutely right -- one of the biggest challenges for the whole test is learning to quickly identify what is useless information, and what is important.

[schwingrocker]

Is c wrong because "if the product does not perform" as it's expected is too broad?

[alexg89]

IMO the key to solving this is recognizing that BJ's does not have to be department store; it only says that by applying the principle laid out that they should refund them. However, for it to be supported they must have actually complied with the principle and the gap is D. (Analysis is nicely provided for that above)

[dean.won]

would C be a good principle answer?

and

would negating C be
"a seller should NOT refund the money if the product does perform as the purchaser expected it to perform" ?

thx

[rumandredbull]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

Really struggling to see why C is incorrect.
I thought D was incorrect because although it fills the gap about the watch being used as intended, wouldn't this be out of scope because we have established that BJ is not a department store?

Really confused, any help is appreciated.

[nflamel69]

The key to this question is the conclusion. You have to recognize that its more or less a conditional conclusion. It says that So by reasonable standard, which suggest assuming the same principle as stated above, I needed to be refunded money. So what's the sufficient conditions that trigger the refund? 1) use it as it intends to be. 2) the watch broke next day. we are only given reason 2 in the premise. So we need the reason 1 to make the argument work.

[daniel]

Really struggling to see why C is incorrect.
.

I believe (C) can be eliminated because it is essentially a premise booster. That is, it restates the principle that is used as a premise of the argument, but extends it to include even more cases by eliminating one of the sufficient conditions (use the watch only as intended) and greatly expanding another ("stops working the next day" becomes "does not perform as expected").

[maryadkins]

Hey guys, great discussion here. To answer your questions:

I believe (C) can be eliminated because it is essentially a premise booster. That is, it restates the principle that is used as a premise of the argument, but extends it to include even more cases by eliminating one of the sufficient conditions (use the watch only as intended) and greatly expanding another ("stops working the next day" becomes "does not perform as expected").

Bingo. We're looking for a necessary assumption. First of all, (C) isn't so much an "assumption" because part of it is already stated. The part that's not stated isn't what we're looking for; it's too broad of a principle.

I thought D was incorrect because although it fills the gap about the watch being used as intended, wouldn't this be out of scope because we have established that BJ is not a department store?

This is solved for by the phrase, "So by this very reasonable standard," which incorporates the department store standard to apply it to BJ's.

Like (C), (A) and (B) aren't in line with the principle given; they over-reach. (E) is out of scope (and why would the assumption be that it's NOT a new watch?)

[nhahoyt]

I also chose B initially, but I see how D is correct. I'd like to add my takeaway to the thread:

As has been stated, it appears that there are two gaps in the consumer's logic. My initial answer was based off the gap relating to BJ's classification as a non-department store. Here's why I was wrong:

The consumer acknowledges that BJ's isn't a department store. Because of this explicit acknowledgment, it can no longer be called an assumption. An assumption is something that is by definition unstated.

That leaves only one remaining assumption: that the consumer used the watch as intended, which is stated in answer D.

[jimmys143]

I will go with the option B and even i ask sellers here which sell patek phille watch to consider these things.

[JeremyK460]

premise:
if you buy a watch at a DS and use it only how you're supposed to, but the watch breaks the next day, then you should be refunded

the watch broke the second i bought it from the jeweler

conclusion:
i should be refunded

one reason (amongst lots depending on your academic background) why even though the jeweler isn't a department store isn't necessary to the argument is because it's used in a concessive manner which expresses a non-truth conditional utterance. in other words...

even if it's raining, jeremy will go outside today.
jeremy will go outside today even though it's raining.

raining has no truth-conditional impact for this claim to be true

more particularly, even, in the way that the stimulus uses it, carries a conventional implicature (https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1 ... 324676.pdf) here's the link to the literature

it's a lot but just command/ctrl+F and search for key words. it's so dry, but happy readings!