Q9 - Advertisement: Clark brand-name parts

[willaminic]

Hi, I choose E on this one...my thought process is like this,

If i negate it, it would be that those parts are poorly constructed in our country, this would destroy the conclusion which states that parts manufactured in our country are the best????

can anyone explain to be why e is wrong and d is right? Thank you so much.

[noah]

Some tricky answers on this one, particularly (E).

The conclusion of this argument is that you should insist on Clark parts. Why? Because they satisfy all our government tests (tough tests!) and with foreign-made parts you can't tell if they're good or cheapos that will break.

There's a few gaps in this argument. For one, perhaps I'm convinced we should buy domestic parts that pass these tests, but why Clark? Why not Clark's domestic competitor that passes all the tests AND offers discounts?

Furthermore, how good are these tests? Sure they're the toughest, but are they tough enough? Could you pass these tests and still be a cheap, liable-to-break car part?

(D) "deals" with this second issue - it assures us that the parts that pass are not as bad as the cheapo foreign ones. If you negate (D), it destroys the argument.

(A) is out of scope - we're not interested in whether we can get them but if we should.

(B) is too extreme and is out of scope. We don't need to assume that the foreign parts don't work for domestic cars. We already know those foreign parts are problematic. Also, this argument has never been restricted to parts for domestic cars. Out of scope.

(C) is too extreme. The argument's premise allows for some foreign parts to be high-quality. The issue is that you can't tell if a foreign part is good or not.

(E) is tempting, but we're not interested in any part made in this country; we're concerned with Clark parts! Even if some domestic parts were bad, the Clark ones could still be fine.

I hope that clears it up.

#officialexplanation

[Mab6q]

Hey MLSAT crew, I was wondering if someone could answer the first question about the negation of E.

Would it be:

If parts are made for cars manufactured in our country, they are SOMETIMES poorly constructed.

That is the only way the argument would not destroy the argument, am i right?


Thanks as always.

[ohthatpatrick]

Negating conditionals is tricky ... so tricky that I would recommend that most people never do it.

You're not negating either side of the conditional. You're negating the arrow (if that makes any sense).

You can always negate an answer by simply saying "It is not true that [answer choice]".

So negated (E) could be, "It is not true that if a part is made for a domestic car that it is not poorly constructed".

Negating (E) is essentially saying "knowing that parts are made for domestic cars is NOT a guarantee that they are well constructed." (I switched from "not poorly constructed" to "well constructed" just to avoid the brain numbing double negative)

One helpful way to think about negating conditionals is to rephrase them as universals.

(E) could be re-written as
"all parts made for domestic cars are well constructed".

So negating it just becomes
"not all parts made for domestic cars are well constructed".

We should always clean up "Not All A are B" as "Some A are ~B".

So the negation could be rewritten "some parts made for domestic cars are NOT well constructed".

Hopefully you can see now how little punching strength the negation has.

Let me know if you have questions about any of that.

[WaltGrace1983]

(E) is wrong because it is not specific enough. The negation of (E) would be, "the parts made for cars manufactured in our country MAY or MAY NOT BE poorly constructed." In other words, there is no guarantee.

However, how are we supposed to know which side Clark brand falls on?

(E) would have been correct I do believe had it said, "Clark parts are not poorly constructed." This is because if this were NOT true, aka Clark parts ARE poorly constructed, then why is it imperative that one chooses Clark? It is just going to be as bad as the worst foreign made parts anyway so you might as well gamble and see if you get a good foreign made part.

This is basically what (D) says. The "parts that satisfy our govt. standards" includes Clark parts. It could have more simply been stated, "Clark parts are NOT as poorly constructed as cheap foreign-made parts."

[beatthelsat]

(E) is wrong because it is not specific enough. The negation of (E) would be, "the parts made for cars manufactured in our country MAY or MAY NOT BE poorly constructed." In other words, there is no guarantee.

However, how are we supposed to know which side Clark brand falls on?

(E) would have been correct I do believe had it said, "Clark parts are not poorly constructed." This is because if this were NOT true, aka Clark parts ARE poorly constructed, then why is it imperative that one chooses Clark? It is just going to be as bad as the worst foreign made parts anyway so you might as well gamble and see if you get a good foreign made part.

This is basically what (D) says. The "parts that satisfy our govt. standards" includes Clark parts. It could have more simply been stated, "Clark parts are NOT as poorly constructed as cheap foreign-made parts."

How is the negation of E, "may or may not be"?

I thought conditionals are absolute?

[WaltGrace1983]

(E) is wrong because it is not specific enough. The negation of (E) would be, "the parts made for cars manufactured in our country MAY or MAY NOT BE poorly constructed." In other words, there is no guarantee.

However, how are we supposed to know which side Clark brand falls on?

(E) would have been correct I do believe had it said, "Clark parts are not poorly constructed." This is because if this were NOT true, aka Clark parts ARE poorly constructed, then why is it imperative that one chooses Clark? It is just going to be as bad as the worst foreign made parts anyway so you might as well gamble and see if you get a good foreign made part.

This is basically what (D) says. The "parts that satisfy our govt. standards" includes Clark parts. It could have more simply been stated, "Clark parts are NOT as poorly constructed as cheap foreign-made parts."

How is the negation of E, "may or may not be"?

I thought conditionals are absolute?

When you negate a conditional like A --> B the negation is NOT: A --> ~B.

The negation is ~(A --> B).

What this essentially means is that, "A doesn't necessarily imply B." In other words, A COULD lead to B but it doesn't HAVE TO.

In plain English, a conditional like A --> B says "When you have A, you must have B."

When you negate this, you negate the "must."

[uhdang]

While I understand and agree with Noah's reasoning for E), my reasoning was different for E), so I want to hear from others.

Since we are comparing with foreign-made parts, I thought insisting that in-country parts are well-constructed, or are not poorly constructed, would strengthen the argument by increasing reliability for Clark parts as well.

I initially thought that this looked like a sufficient assumption, but, while I can see this strengthens the argument, I couldn't see this bridging anything. So, it would just be strengthening.

Any thoughts on this?

[ohthatpatrick]

I agree that (E) would strengthen for the reason you give. However, it would provide pretty much the same type, or “bridge”, of strengthening that (D) provides.

They’re both essentially giving you some reassurance that the Clark parts are not crap. So what is your reason for thinking that LSAT likes (D) more than (E)?

Essentially, this tests your ability to perform the Negation Test.

negated-(D) Parts that satisfy standards ARE as poorly constructed as cheap foreign-made parts
vs.
negated-(E) At least some parts made for cars manufactured in our country are poorly constructed

Which one hurts the argument more?

negated-(D) does, because it guarantees us that Clark parts are as poorly constructed as cheap foreign parts.
negated-(E) only gives us the possibility that Clark parts are poorly constructed.

If you negated (E) and thought that it would be saying, “if a part was made for cars manufactured in our country, then it IS poorly constructed”, you would think that (E) had just as much force as (D).

So make sure you read the posts about negating conditionals and get comfortable with that idea. The more conversational way to talk about (D) and (E) would be like Noah’s original response … (E) makes a claim about ALL parts made for domestic cars. The author’s only talking about Clark domestic parts vs. foreign parts.

(D) makes a claim about ALL parts that satisfy standards. We care about this because the author leaning on these standards as evidence of Clark’s quality.

[uhdang]

Thanks for the reply, Patrick

I got to learn how to apply negation technique on conditional statement, thanks to you. (although you said it's wise NOT to do so in most cases)

To sum up, applying negation technique would be in general:

X -> Y would be If X, maybe Y or maybe ~Y.
i.e. If I negate "If I like blue, I like the sea", it would read, "If I like blue, I may or may not like the sea." (from " It's not true that if I like blue, I like the sea ")

For Quantity-related conditional statement,

X -> Y would read, If X, at least some Y.
i.e. Negating "If aliens from Mars like blue, they like sea" would be "If aliens from Mars like blue, at least some of them like the sea".

And when I looked at Noah's reasoning again, it makes more sense to reason that way. E) does sound more general and it might not apply to Clark's part while D) would include Clark's part.

Thanks for the help. Really appreciate it.

P.S. For those of you want to see Patrick's post on Negating Conditional Statement, check out this link. Although he explained it above, I like this explanation better.
Subject: Negation Test - Conditional Answer Choices? (NA)

[eiwon21]

Hello, I have a question about Necessary Assumption questions in general. For me, when I see answers such as D, I tend to cross them out because I see it as too broad of an assumption.

We don't know that Clark parts are the only parts that satisfy government standards, there could be brands XYZ that also satisfy our government standards. By saying (D), aren't we stating an assumption that doesn't necessarily have to be true? We don't absolutely NEED (D) as an assumption because it is a wider scope than the argument asks for-- all we need is that CLARK brand name parts should be used, not any part that satisfies our government standards.

Does this make sense? I think I have a problem choosing answers that don't seem too be absolutely REQUIRED in making the argument stand, if that makes sense. Please help!


For instance, in Ptest 4- LR1 - #10, another Necessary Assumption question, the answer is (E) Rhizobium bacteria living in the roots of wheat would produce fixed nitrogen. I understood why this would be the correct answer, but ONLY BECAUSE it specified bacteria in the roots of "wheat." Had the answer choice said "Rhizobium bacteria living in the roots of non-legume plant would produce fixed nitrogen," wouldn't this be wrong?

[oatsjamie]

Hi

I originally chose (D) and then in my blind review chose (C). Could someone please explain why (C) is a wrong answer choice?

The stimulus states :
Clark brand-name parts "satisfy all of our government automotive tests - the toughest tests in the world. With foreign-made parts, you never know which might be reliable and which are cheap look-alikes that are poorly constructed..."

I understood this to mean that the argument assumes (C) No foreign-made parts satisfy our government standards. (Hence, you can never know which might be reliable. Whereas, because Clark parts satisfy government standards, they are reliable.) Because if foreign-made parts satisfy our government standards, then that would mean that both Clark & Foreign-made parts are reliable. So the argument would not hold.

Now I know that the answer choice (C) is wrong, I know that the underlined inference is wrong. But I can't fully understand why it is wrong.

Please help

Thank you.

[sarah_sarah99]

My understanding is, C is wrong because D exists. We are required to choose the best answer, that means if there are several competing answer choices, we still have to compare them to each other. D is better because it's negation destroys the entire argument, suggesting even Clark parts can be poorly constructed, so there's no reason to “insist on Clark“. C‘s negation destroys a smaller part of it, only to suggest that some foreign parts are as good as Clark parts, but one can still “insist on Clark” parts if one doesn't want to bother to find out which foreign parts are good.

[ohthatpatrick]

For some questions we expect to pick the "best" answer, but for others I wouldn't go there.

For Strengthen, Weaken, Explain Paradox, Inference (most supported), the question stem is worded in a relative way.

For other ones, it's phrased in an absolute way.
(Suff & Nec Assump, Main Conclusion, some Flaw question stems)

This question should be written in a way that 4 of these are not required, 1 of them is.

(To the extent that it might be one of those rare badly written questions, we might still be picking 'the best', but let's actually expect to find concrete reasons why four answers are wrong)

As you correctly said, the standard for "is it required?" is the Negation Test.

Necessary Assumption = which answer, if negated, would badly weaken

Negating (C) would mean "at least one foreign-made part satisfies our govt standards".

Would that weaken? Not really. The author was never insinuating that ZERO foreign made parts meet our govt. standards. She was more insinuating that some might, some might not. Her sales pitch was "MAYBE you'd be okay with a foreign part, but why take the risk?"

Negating (D) would say "it's possible to satisfy our govt's standards and be as poorly made as cheap foreign parts".

Does this weaken? Yes, because the author was making it seem like selecting Clark's was a safer guarantee of reliable quality than selecting a foreign part.

The only thing we know about Clark's is that they satisfy our govt.'s standards.

If satisfying our govt.'s standards doesn't guarantee that something is better constructed than a cheap foreign part, then buying a Clark's part is the exact same risk as buying a foreign part.

Hope this helps.

[dragonliwenxu]

I think the choices are just not well designed

Both "parts that satisfy our government standards"(D) and "parts made for cars manufactured in our country"(E) could include foreign-made cars.

[JeremyK460]

I think the choices are just not well designed

Both "parts that satisfy our government standards"(D) and "parts made for cars manufactured in our country"(E) could include foreign-made cars.

yo! stim says (presupposes) some foreign made parts are reliable, some are cheap and leave you with a headache.

answer choice d says: parts that satisfy our government standards are not as poorly constructed as CHEAP foreign-made parts - not those that were said (presupposed) to be reliable