Q18 - A recent magazine articles

[yisiyu123]

I picked E at first, with doubt though, after review I can see why D is better.

D is better b/c it's more directly related to the flaw of the argument, which is that the businesses who have purchased such equipment might not be those who do not own videoconferencing equipment mentioned by the said magazine. Therefore it might be an unrepresentative sample

And E is wrong b/c the argument did not confuse the cost with the value? But I am not sure exactly how E is wrong.

Can anyone help me?

[mahamansoor]

I picked E at first, with doubt though, after review I can see why D is better.

D is better b/c it's more directly related to the flaw of the argument, which is that the businesses who have purchased such equipment might not be those who do not own videoconferencing equipment mentioned by the said magazine. Therefore it might be an unrepresentative sample

And E is wrong b/c the argument did not confuse the cost with the value? But I am not sure exactly how E is wrong.

Can anyone help me?

Hi, you're on the right track.

Premise 1: Those who don't own videoconferencing equipment would be wasting money if they bought it.
Premise 2: People who have bought this equipment think its worth the cost.
Conclusion: Therefore, the equipment is worth the cost.

We can predict a few ways that this argument is flawed:
- Premise 2 says "was well worth its cost" - What if that particular equipment is being replaced now by some newer equipment?
- What if those who have bought it at really expensive prices, and they really needed it? But now, there are alternatives.

Predicting the right answers are key. So with this in mind let's get to the answers:

A) We don't know if "many businesses" have purchased it. Out of scope.
B) Maybe... Let's break this down and turn this into the conditional of the answer choice:
Conditional: Purchase it -> waste money
Valid Contra: ~Waste Money -> ~ Purchase it
Our Invalid Argument: Purchase it -> ~waste money
Therefore, we don't take mistake "sufficient" and "necessary", but instead negate it incorrectly.
C) There's no inadequate argument.
D) Hey... yes. Our second group may not represent our prediction!!! It might have different $ criteria, or different goals, or of a completely different time period.
E) There's no "value" and "cost" confusion. It does not say nor imply "value" anywhere. "Wasting money" isn't denoting value, but saying that the benefits derived from the cost do not outweigh the cost. This is a slight detail creep, but beware.

[ohthatpatrick]

Great explanation!

Just a few tweaks/additions:

(A) we DO know that many have purchased it. However, the author doesn't conclude videoconferencing gear is worth it merely on this grounds. He also includes a premise that most of the businesses who HAVE purchased it think that their purchase was worth it.

(B) This is a famous, recurring flaw (Nec/Suff Flaw), which simply means that in the premise there was a conditional statement, and the author interpreted it illegally (either by reversing or negating). I would simply ask myself, "Was there a conditional premise?" There wasn't, so eliminate.

(C) This is a famous, recurring flaw (Failure to Prove = Proof of Failure). This argument doesn't attack the recent magazine article's attempt to prove something. The author advances his OWN premise, providing a survey as evidence.

The nature of this recurring flaw is that the author DIDN'T provide any evidence of his own; he only shot down the other guy's premise.

(E) Value is definitely relevant. "Worth the cost" = "enough value". "Wasting their money" = "not enough value".

How do you measure whether buying a $20 steak was "worth the cost" or "wasting your money"? You have to invoke the notion of value: how much did you enjoy it? How much enjoyment did you get out of it relative to how much enjoyment you could have gotten out of something priced differently?

(E) is just wrong because the author doesn't confuse cost/value.

He just inaccurately assumes that because something was sufficiently valuable to ONE group, it would be sufficiently valuable to a DIFFERENT group.

Hope this helps.

[uhdang]

Reasoning for D didn't come to me at once, and I had to really think about it. Please see if this would be right for D.

Regarding a given survey, when it presents a statement of "well worth its cost", it says that this is from respondents, not all of those that have purchased such equipment, which would have been more accurate. So, now, we have to look a bit closer into these respondents.

Could they have been really satisfied with videoconferencing equipment and participated in the survey with excitement and positive attitude while there were much more of those who didn't like the equipment but didn't really care for the survey?

If this were true, this would actually weaken the argument. And this group would indeed be unrepresentative of the group.

Or, it could be that videoconferencing equipment actually IS very useful and "well worth the cost" and anyone from those who purchased this equipment would have been positive about this equipment anyway.

In this case, this would strengthen the argument, and this could be representative of the group.

When we consider people more often participate in such a survey to complain ( since a flaw sticks out more ), narrowing down to "respondents" could strengthen the argument in this case. But this would need an additional assumption.

Since it becomes really ambiguous as to whether this group is unrepresentative or not, I thought D is good for the answer.
However, the answer choice says "it is reasonable to suppose it unrepresentative." This means this group is unrepresentative and that's it.
And I'm not quite there to understand how it is ONLY unrepresentative.
Could anyone check my reasoning and point out where I made a mistake?

[ohthatpatrick]

I think you're going WAY too deep and adding your own assumptions.

We're not allowed to say that "negative reviewers are more likely to respond" as a common sense axiom.

It might be fair to say that polarized reviewers are more likely to respond, because they have a stronger feeling than wishy-washy moderates.

But people who love a product could be just as likely to leave a review.

More importantly, you just don't know anything about this survey. Maybe 100% of people responded! Maybe there was an incentive to respond ... "Fill out this survey and get a free stapler!"

The "unrepresentative" nature of the sample being tested is not
[type of people who RESPOND to a survey] vs. [type of people who DON'T respond]

What group does the author make a conclusion about?

The author's conclusion is that "companies that do not already own videoconferencing equipment would be making a worthwhile purchase to buy such equipment."

The author's evidence is about "companies that have already bought videoconferencing equipment"

That's it. That's all LSAT is testing.

Have you seen all those news articles that warn about going to law school these days? There are reports that firms are often rescinding offers to law students who work with them over the summer between 2nd and 3rd year. Starting salaries might be lower. It might be harder to pay back debt.

So suppose someone said, "Most people who don't already have a law degree would be wasting their money pursuing one."

Would it be relevant to talk to a bunch of 40 and 50 year old lawyers who got GREAT value out of their law degree ... in a completely different job market decades ago?

To get real world on this videoconferencing thing, business that bought videoconferencing stuff may have done so in the 90's, when the alternative to having your own equipment was to rent expensive videoconferencing services from places like Kinko's (I used to work there .. it was like $100/hr to rent that equipment).

So for business in the 90's, buying their own equipment may have been well worth the cost.

These days, there's Skype, Facetime, Google Hangout. Why do you need to buy your own videoconferencing equipment?

Even though it was worth the cost for the businesses who've already bought it, it might not be worth it for most businesses buying it nowadays.

[uhdang]

I see I was making way too much assumptions in this question.
Your explanation is crystal clear. I can see how "unrepresentative" flaw applies here.

More importantly, you just don't know anything about this survey. Maybe 100% of people responded! Maybe there was an incentive to respond ... "Fill out this survey and get a free stapler!"

Now, regarding the issue of respondents, since you yourself said that we just don't know anything about this survey, there is clearly a gap on how many have responded.

Could it be a separate flaw if given as another answer choice?
For example, let's say answer choice F) said,
"the argument presumes, without providing justification, respondents for the survey represents everyone who already purchased the videoconference equipment"

Would it be good for an answer choice?

[ohthatpatrick]

'Respondents represent everyone'? That sounds like an extreme assumption.

It could say something like, "takes for granted that people who were satisfied with the value of their videoconferencing approach were not substantially more likely to respond to the survey".

[mswang7]

What is B trying to say if we put it in concrete terms? Here is my stab. The overall conclusion in conditional terms is if purchased equip then it's not a waste of money. The sufficient condition is purchasing equipment and the necessary is not a waste of money. Subbing this into b - takes purchasing equipment to be necessary in order to justify the cost. This doesn't make much sense to me?

[smiller]

The conclusion is a conditional statement, and choice (B) is describing a conditional logic flaw, but the two don't really connect together. Choice (B) mentions a condition that justifies purchasing the equipment, and we aren't given any premises that definitely justify the cost. Suppose the argument were written like this:

Premise 1: "If a company has many employees who work remotely then the cost of videoconferencing equipment is justified."
Premise 2: "The price that Acme Inc. paid for videoconferencing equipment was justified."
Conclusion: "Acme Inc. has many employees that work remotely."

In that case, choice (B) would be a good answer. But that's not the way the argument is structured in this question.

If you have serious difficulty putting an answer like (B) into concrete terms that line up with the argument, that's actually a good indication that choice (B) is an incorrect answer!