#25 - Direct-mail advertising usually consists of

[mab9178]

Hi

Answer-choice B would still be the correct choice, "most strengthen from the bunch," even if the LSAC writers had said "some" as opposed to "most," because A seems to weaken, and C, D and E are irrelevant.

Am I correct?

Thank you
Mazen

[atierney]

Hello,

This is where we're splitting hairs a little; however, it is correct to take C, D, E as irrelevant, A as an opposite answer (weaken as opposed to strengthen), and therefore B the answer by default, as long as its on point and strengthens to some degree.

In short, I would agree!

[powerlsat]

Hello, I have a question about E. Since the conclusion is not looking at the relative amount of air pollution prevented with purchases made from home in response to direct-mail advertisements and without it, why does it matter whether home purchases replace or add to the total number of purchases? Even if home purchases were made in addition to in-store purchases, those home purchases would nonetheless have helped to save a certain amount of pollutants (even by little!) As long as those home purchases did prevent additional pollutants, no matter how much or whether they successfully forestalled and thus replaced potential in-store purchases, it still stands to reason that direct-mail ads are not environmentally harmful. To strengthen the conclusion that they may not be environmentally harmful, we don't need to compare the number of home purchases against that of purchases made elsewhere. All we need is whether home purchases have been made and as a result less pollutants have been added to the air. Could someone tell me where I might have made a mistake? Thank you!

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, Power!

You're right that there are different avenues for strengthening this argument. We might rule out the possibility that the direct mail ads themselves generate a large amount of garbage that itself harms the environment. We might rule out the possibility that the delivery vehicles used to transport the goods to their purchasers in the aggregate add more pollution than would the cars that the purchasers would otherwise have used.

However, there is an implicit comparison involved in saying it's a good thing that people are purchasing these items from home instead of in stores. We have to at least entertain the possibility that the consumers would have otherwise gone to stores to shop for these items. That is the only way for us to conclude that there are somehow fewer pollutants. If they wouldn't have bought the items anyways, there is no pollution to avoid and the conclusion makes no sense.

With respect to answer choice (E), there is no implicit improvement to pollution. Just because more and more items are being bought from home doesn't imply that fewer items are being bought in stores.

For example, imagine that in 2020, 100 items were bought from stores and 0 items were bought from direct-mail marketing. Then in 2021 100 items were bought from stores and 300 items were bought from direct-mail marketing. This is consistent with the situation that answer choice (E) describes–the direct mail marketing sales are going up and up–however there is no net decrease in store purchases; there is no reason to think there has been any pollution improvement.

Answer choice (E) doesn't do anything to strengthen the argument without adding our own unwarranted assumptions. In fact, depending on what the facts turn out to be, answer choice (E) could have different effects or no effect at all on the argument.

I hope this helps!

[jacthompson8]

I understand why answer choice B is correct, given that it reduces the number of cars (and thereby pollution) associated with buying the products. However, I was confused about AC E and decided to explain it.

My logic in (incorrectly) picking AC E was that if the proportion of products purchased via direct mail advertising is increasing, and these products are (according to the question stem) "products whose purchase would otherwise require the use of a car," then wouldn't the proportion of cars also decrease according to this AC? Not necessarily.

The use of cars would only decrease in this scenario if the people buying via direct mail advertisements would have otherwise bought the items without the advertisement. I think this would be a safe assumption to make if you heard this argument in a conversation, but for the point of the LSAT, it is an assumption that does not yet exist. That is why AC B is correct, as it provides this specific assumption and thereby strengthens the argument more than AC E could, given that AC E requires the assumption made in AC B for it to even be valid.

[Adam Tyson]

Good analysis, jacthompson8! Answer E only helps if answer B is also true, so it really does nothing by itself. Imagine the opposite of answer B - online purchases might be things that otherwise would not have been purchased, so total purchasing is going up, and the proportion that are purchased online would go up. This is a classic numbers/percentages problem, in that an increasing proportion tells us nothing about the total number.