#2 - A study found that consumers reaching supermarket

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Strengthen—CE. The correct answer choice is (B)

The argument here concludes that advertisements aired over the store’s audio system are effective at making consumers more likely to purchase the advertised products:

• Cause Effect
  
  Advertisements Consumers more likely to purchase

Like any causal argument, this argument is inherently weak as there could be other explanations for the behavior observed. However, in order to strengthen this causal relationship, the correct answer should make it more likely that the advertisements did indeed cause more customers to purchase the advertised products.

Answer Choice (A): This answer choice deals with an irrelevant statistic. The study was focused on those consumers who checked out within 40 minutes after the advertisements were aired. These customers were more likely to purchase the product than were the customers who checked out before the advertisement, meaning a higher proportion of the first group purchased the product. The relative number of customers who checked out before and after the advertisements were aired has no bearing on the issue at hand.

Answer Choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. If a large proportion of consumers did not already intend to buy the product prior to the advertisements, this would eliminate an alternate cause that could potentially explain why the advertised products were more popular among them. By eliminating an alternate cause, this answer choice helps strengthen the conclusion that the advertisements are probably effective.

Answer Choice (C): This answer choice is an Opposite Answer as it weakens the argument. If the customers regularly purchase some of the products in question, then the advertisements are probably not the reason why they are buying them. This answer choice is a classic Weaken answer in that it provides a potential alternate cause for the observed effect.

Answer Choice (D): This answer choice appears to either weaken or have no effect on the argument. The fact that many of the consumers do not remember the advertisement may indicate that the advertisement was not actually effective, which would weaken the argument. At any rate, it is not essential that a consumer remember an advertisement for it to impact their buying decision. So the fact that the consumers did not remember what they heard may be irrelevant to the advertisement’s effectiveness. In either case, this answer choice does not strengthen the argument, and is therefore incorrect.

Answer Choice (E): It is not known whether this answer choice is referring to customers who purchased advertised products after the advertisements were aired. These “many” customers may have purchased the advertised products before the advertisements were aired, and so this answer may have no bearing on the effectiveness of the advertisements.

[mokkyukkyu]

I'm not sure why A is wrong...if the number of consumer increased between before the ad. is aired and after the ad. is aired, wouldn't that explain the ad. is actually effective? and it says "for" so this means because of the ad. right?
Or...I thought it shows evidence of what is discussed in the stimulus.
Or is it wrong because it just kind of repeating what is discussed in the argument and the increase could be a coincidence?

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for asking, mokkyukkyu. The problem with answer A is that it tells us only about numbers - MORE people went through the checkout line after the ad was aired then before. It doesn't do anything to explain the increased percentage of those checking out who bought the advertised products. Arguments about numbers typically tell us nothing about percentages, and vice versa, without more data being added to the equation.

Let's say it's just before the evening rush at the store. In that last quiet hour, 5 people went through the line, and three of them (60%) bought the product that had not yet been advertised. Now, the busy time hits, at the beginning of which the ad plays. Over the next hour 100 people go through the line, and 30 of them buy that advertised product. Great, more people bought it! But wait, 30 is only 30% of those 100 people - that means the likelihood of people buying the product (an expression of percentage) actually went down, a lot. See how numbers here - more people went through the line - does nothing to strengthen a conclusion about percentages?

I think I see where you are going with the word "for" here, and it's not quite right. "For" doesn't mean "caused by" in this case - it is not saying more people checked out because they heard the ad. What it is saying is that in most cases, following the ad more people checked out than had done so before the ad. It just sets up a correlation between the ad playing and the volume of customers. That does nothing to tell us why a larger percentage of those customers bought the product - again, the volume increase could just have to do with a busy time at the store.

Just to repeat myself here, for clarity - numbers in the case of answer A do nothing to explain the change in percentages in the stimulus, and so answer A offers nothing new to help strengthen the conclusion.

I hope that helped!

[15veries]

Hi

So I thought A is wrong because it does not say they bought the item...
And B is right because it talks about % as the stimulus is also about %.
At first I was not sure about B either because it does not relate the phenamona to the ad...maybe it's coincidence. Maybe not due to the ad...but they suddently wanted the item because it was on sale etc. BUt I guess B is right bc it's the best among 5?
By the way
For the number and % explanation, do you mean "likely" this part is mentioning % instead of number?
So more likely always means % and never number?

Thanks

[Adam Tyson]

"Likely" is always an expression of percentage, never of numbers, 15. Something being likely to occur means that it occurs more than 50% of the time. A greater likelihood means a higher percentage chance, a higher probability. Same idea as "chance" or "share" or "incidence". Study those key words that indicate either numbers or probability and you'll likely get a big payoff on those types of questions!