Q19 - In these poor economic times

[wguwguwgu]

Hi!

I understand that B is not perfect, because of the phrase "while effective". but how is A better? A says "contrary to the anticipated effect" which is never stated in the stimulus, which only said "forcing us the raise the price". "I disagree" doesn't warrant an opposite effect either.

Of course A can be inferred, but I thought one main lesson I got from the LR drilling is that one should always avoid inferring, but only stick to the exact wording. I'm really lost here as to what to think/pick, especially in the real timed test.

Your comments on this particular question and also on my general dilemma of "infer or not to infer" will be greatly appreciated! Many thanks in advance!

[timmydoeslsat]

Good question.

This is a essentially a method of reasoning question stem about Anika. Since we have a 2 speaker set, we want to read all of the dialogue available as this can definitely be included in the discussion of how Anika responds.

Inez predicts that more people would be willing to buy antiques at the fair if they have appraisers inspect the products to remove doubt about authenticity. This is brought about by the issue of poor economic times in which people want good value for their money.

Anika says that she disagrees with the prediction. So, Anika does not believe that more people would be willing to buy antiques at the fair if they had appraisers.

She gives 2 reasons for this.

1) The people buying are already experts. This would challenge an assumption made by Inez.

2. Hiring these appraisers to perform this function would raise prices on everything at the fair.

So, we there are a couple of ways in which we can describe how she responds. We definitely know that she is obviously not agreeing with Inez. We know that she did challenge an assumption Inez made and also does not believe in the prediction.

A) This fits our prephrase quite well. The particular plan (hiring appraisers) would have an effect contrary to the anticipated effect.

By saying that she disagrees with the prediction of more people willing to buy if appraisers are factored into the mix, she is believing that this effect will not occur.

She does not believe that more people would be willing to buy. This means that she does believe that it would have a contrary (different) effect.


B) Notice that Anika simply disagrees with the prediction. Does she claim that something should not be done? No. She does not claim that in this argument.

[giladedelman]

Yes, good response.

To the original poster: it seems you're getting hung up on "contrary." You're right that contrary means opposite, but even "opposite" is actually kind of a loose term. In this case, Inez says the proposed plan will make people more willing to buy the antiques; Anika responds that it will not make people more willing to buy. Inez says it will, Anika says it won't: these are contrary outcomes. So the fact that Anika doesn't explicitly say the proposal will actually make people less willing to buy is okay; she's still saying that the effect will be contrary to what Inez predicts.

Does that make sense?

So (A) is correct.

(B) is a really terrible answer because Anika never says the plan shouldn't be adopted. She says it won't have the effect that Inez predicts, but she never says whether it should or should not be implemented; maybe she doesn't care about whether customers are buying, and only cares about getting more work for professional appraisers. She could love this plan!

(C) is out because there's no mention of any alternative plan.

(D) is out because Anika doesn't question the knowledge of these authorities.

(E) is out because there is no counterexample.

In response to your more general point: there is nothing wrong with inferring, except on questions that simply ask us to identify, as in "What is the conclusion?" Nothing wrong with inferring, that is, as long as we understand what inferring really means: it means figuring out what must be true based on the text. To justify answer (B), we're not inferring; rather, we're assuming, that because Anika disagrees with Inez's prediction, she thinks the plan should not be adopted. The opposite could just as easily be true, logically speaking, so we have no basis for making such an inference.

Let me know if that is all clear; this is an important topic!