#12 - Advertisement: When you need a will, consulting a

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[mjb514]

Can you please explain why C is incorrect. Thank you.

[Claire Horan]

Hi mjb514,

C is about whether people are satisfied with the results of DIY software, but the conclusion does not mention anything about satisfaction. The conclusion is that a lawyer's expert advice is worth paying for. You can use the assumption negation technique on C to show that it is wrong. Negate it: Not many people who use DIY are unsatisfied. Does this challenge the conclusion? No. It's irrelevant. Remember that differences in language are very important, so we can't assume that worth is equivalent with people's satisfaction.

Here I'll offer some advice that I've given many times: While studying, spend more time on why the right answer is right and only a little time on why the wrong answers are wrong. A very thorough understanding of the right answer will usually help you avoid the wrong answers in the future. With that in mind, let's consider the correct answer: B.

If we negate B, the statement says that DIY software can tailor a will to specific needs as well as a lawyer's advice can. If that is true, it attacks the conclusion that the lawyer's expert advice is worth paying for because of the premise that what you pay a lawyer for is the tailoring. Consider how much cleaner that connection is than the statement in answer choice C.

I hope this explanation helps!

[VamosRafa19]

Hi I was 99% sure the answer was B, but could not eliminate E as quickly on my first pass through. I thought maybe it was defending the premise, in this case the analogy used as a premise. On a second read, I see that this is already baked into the premise. The premise reads "when you're ill, you aren't satisfied with simply getting a valid prescription or other; what you pay your doctor for is for the doctor's...". The analogy includes the fact that you already went to the doctor to get a prescription, but the main reason you're paying for is the advice. Therefore you don't need to say that there's some way for an ill person to get a prescription without a doctor, eliminating E. Is this line of thinking correct?

[Adam Tyson]

That's one problem with E, VamosRafa19, and one problem is all you need to find in order to eliminate a bad answer. Good work!

Another reason to cross it out is that even if there is some way to get a valid prescription some other way, that doesn't do any harm to the claim that a lawyer's advice is worth paying for. The negation of that answer doesn't do any damage to the argument (because, as you pointed out, the advice is the real issue, not the scrip, just like just having a valid will is not the real issue in the argument), and so it cannot be a necessary assumption.

[VamosRafa19]

That makes sense. Thanks Adam!

[Jude.m.stone@gmail.com]

Hi mjb514,

C is about whether people are satisfied with the results of DIY software, but the conclusion does not mention anything about satisfaction. The conclusion is that a lawyer's expert advice is worth paying for. You can use the assumption negation technique on C to show that it is wrong. Negate it: Not many people who use DIY are unsatisfied. Does this challenge the conclusion? No. It's irrelevant. Remember that differences in language are very important, so we can't assume that worth is equivalent with people's satisfaction.

Here I'll offer some advice that I've given many times: While studying, spend more time on why the right answer is right and only a little time on why the wrong answers are wrong. A very thorough understanding of the right answer will usually help you avoid the wrong answers in the future. With that in mind, let's consider the correct answer: B.

If we negate B, the statement says that DIY software can tailor a will to specific needs as well as a lawyer's advice can. If that is true, it attacks the conclusion that the lawyer's expert advice is worth paying for because of the premise that what you pay a lawyer for is the tailoring. Consider how much cleaner that connection is than the statement in answer choice C.

I hope this explanation helps!

Hi, the part I'm still confused about is that I don't see how people's lack of satisfaction doesn't harm the conclusion. My reasoning is that according to the stimulus, "when you’re ill, you aren’t satisfied with simply getting some valid prescription or other; what you pay your doctor for is the doctor’s expert advice... Similarly, what you pay a lawyer for is to tailor your will..." The way I read this, the stimulus assumes that the doctor and lawyer are analogous enough to compare. And in the case of the doctor, people aren't satisfied with the boilerplate valid option, so they pay for tailored advice (which they are implicitly satisfied by if they notice enough difference to pay extra for the doctor's advice --right?). By extension, if answer choice C shows that many people are unsatisfied with the boilerplate valid option, then they're willing to pay for a lawyer's tailored advice (which is worth paying for).

That said, I can see how the "always" the part is what makes choice C wrong, because many people being unsatisfied doesn't mean that all people are. But is there another piece I'm missing here, or is it just the "always" that invalidates choice B?

Thanks for your help!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Jude.m.stone!

You comment,

the part I'm still confused about is that I don't see how people's lack of satisfaction doesn't harm the conclusion

I'm not entirely sure I follow when you refer to harming the conclusion. This is an assumption question, so we're not looking for an answer choice that harms the conclusion. That would be something to look for on a weaken question.

It can also be what to look for when applying the Assumption Negation technique. That involves negating an answer choice and plugging the result back into the stimulus; if that makes the argument fall apart or harms/weakens it, then one knows that the answer choice is an assumption on which the argument depends. Here, if one negates answer choice (C), we wouldn't have "lack of satisfaction" but rather the opposite.

By contrast, take the negation of (B): "Do-it-yourself software [can] tailor a person’s will to meet that person’s particular circumstances as well as a lawyer can." If this were true, it'd make the argument fall apart. The argument is that people want tailored advice, with the example that people are willing to pay for this in the case of advice from doctors. The advertisement indicates that this is a reason in favor of paying a lawyer instead of using DIY software. If that DIY software could tailor a will to the person's needs, this undercuts the reason for paying more for a lawyer to do the same thing.