#3 - Humorous television advertisements are the only

[Bmas123]

Hi! Is it possible to look at the question flaw as exclusivity? I got from the first sentence that the only effective ad will come from humor. Going in with exclusivity flaw as my prephrase, I thought that A fit the script pretty well. Is this still a valid way of looking at this problem?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Bmas123!

Yes, exclusivity seems to be an accurate way to describe it.

To break it down more thoroughly, there's conditional reasoning in the stimulus: "For if something is humorous it will not only attract people’s attention, it will hold their attention long enough for a message to be conveyed." This can be diagrammed as:

Humorous Attract AND Hold

If something is humorous, then it both attracts and holds attention. There is also the following implicit premise:

Convey Hold

In other words, if an advertisement conveys a message, then it must have held people's attention. We're also given an additional premise: "for an advertisement to be effective it must convey its message." This can be diagrammed as conditional reasoning as well:

Effective Convey

And we can link these conditional statements in a chain:

Effective Convey Hold

Answer choice (A) identifies the flaw: the argument "takes for granted that nothing but humor can attract a person’s attention and hold it long enough for a message to be conveyed." It's true based on the information in the stimulus that humor is one way to hold a person's attention, but the conclusion that "Humorous television advertisements are the only effective ones" is stronger than what is warranted from the premises. There might be other types of commercials beyond humorous ones that also hold attention, other routes beyond humor to convey a message and thus be effective. So exclusivity makes sense in describing this flaw.

[lemonade42]

Hello, I've been trying to understand how (A) is correct and (C) is wrong after reading all the previous comments, can you check to see if my thinking is correct? I also have some questions along the way

Basically I think...
Premise 1: humorous ---> attract attention, hold attention long enough to convey message
Premise 2: effective ad ---> conveys message
Conclusion: effective ad ---> humorous

In order to make the conclusion, (Q1) is the author assuming that "attract attention" is encompassed in "holding attention long enough to convey message" so he just simplifies both into "conveys message" of P2?
Because if yes, that would allow the author to combine P2 with the MR of P1, to get (effective ad ---> conveys message ---> humorous)
which can be shortened to the conclusion ( effective ad ---> humorous)

(A) is correct because it shows the MR that happened to P1. "nothing but" means "only" which is a necessary condition indicator, meaning it made "humor" into a necessary condition. Just because a sufficient condition requires a necessary condition, doesn't mean the necessary condition requires a sufficient condition. Because having the necessary condition could require humor, but it could also require other conditions that lead to attention+holding attention.

Also I'm still unsure why (C) is wrong, because I thought "the necessary condition for an ad being effective" was "conveys message" (from P2). and then it became a sufficient condition in the MR of P1 which was (conveys message ---> humorous). (Q2)So isn't that a flaw, to have used it in the MR? (the other necessary condition of effective ad is humorous in the conclusion. Humorous was used as a sufficient condition in P1, but that wasn't a flaw because that was before the MR happened)

[Dana D]

Hey Lemonade,

Here the author says that a necessary condition for an add to be effective is to convey the ad's message:

Effective ad message conveyed

The author also states that humorous ads are the only effective ones, because they convey a message. Now humorous ads might be effective because they convey a message, but theoretically there is no reason other advertisement strategies couldn't also convey a message and be effective as well. If the author told us that humor is the only way to convey a message, then this would make sense, but it does not do this, so it is a mistake to say humorous ads are the only effective ones. That is what answer choice (A) says.

Answer choice (C) would mean the stimulus mistook conveying a message (the necessary condition) as a sufficient condition, and said that because humorous ads convey a message, they are effective advertisements. However, that is not the flaw in this argument. Instead, the flaw is that the author is assuming only one type of advertisement (humorous ones) can meet the necessary condition of conveying a message.

[askuwheteau@protonmail.com]

I could not understand the end part of the long drawn-out explanation using conditional logic, but I was able to understand this problem from a different perspective. Given that flaw questions are in the first family (like MBT), I sought to narrow down answers based upon whether or not they follow from the stimulus. Is my reasoning sound?

For reference: S (means supported by the stimulus) and U (means unsupported by the stimulus).

A: S [Describes the failure of the argument to account for an alternate means of constructing an attention-grabbing and message conveying advertisement (i.e., could have used a scenario involving the following: presentation of bold new facts, presenting a new question for consideration, a unique personal account)]

B: U (totally unsupported as sentence two delineates between these two aspects)

C: U [For this answer to be true, the latter part of sentence three “it must convey its message” would likely have to serve as a sufficient condition somewhere else (i.e., in the latter part of sentence two). However, in both instances, the phrase continues to serve in the capacity of a necessary condition and not in the capacity of a sufficient condition]

D: U (no fallacy of equivocation here…the meaning of effective as used here is quite clear)

E: U (the stimulus never assumes that the only end-goal objective of an advertisement is to convey its message)

[lsatstudent99966]

Can someone please explain why answer (C) is wrong?

I understand why answer (A) is the correct answer, but answer (C) sounds right to me too.

1. In the first sentence of the stimulus, the author claims that humorous ads are the only effect ads. This seems to mean two things:
A. If an ad is humorous, then the ad must be effective
effective ads humorous
B. Humorous ads are effective
humorous effective ads

2. In the last sentence of the stimulus, the author claims effective ads must convey its message:
effective ads convey message

3. In the second sentence of the stimulus, the author claims that humorous ads can "hold their attention long enough for a message to be conveyed"; I think we can tell from the phrase "hold their attention long enough for a message to be conveyed" that "hold their attention long enough" is a necessary condition for "conveying a message"(the first post in this thread read it this way too):
convey message hold their attention long enough

4. Combining the conditional relationships in 2. and 3.:
effective ads convey message hold their attention long enough

5. From the second sentence of the stimulus, we know that humorous ads possess the ability to hold their attention long enough:
humorous hold their attention long enough

6. Now we refer back to the conditional relationship in 1. B.:
humorous effective ads


So the author seems to mistaken a necessary condition for an ad to be effective as a sufficient condition for an ad to be effective. Otherwise, how can the author conclude that humorous ads are effective?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi lsatstudent,

First, I'm going to recommend that you reread the original explanation posted of this question, as it looks like one or two points were unclear to you.

The first sentence of the stimulus, which is the conclusion of the argument, does not mean the two things that you listed. It only means "if an ad is effective, then it must be humorous."

This can be diagrammed:

Ad. Eff. -> Hum.

It does not mean "if humorous, then the ad must be effective."

The wording of the first sentence can be tricky to diagram because the indicator words "the only" actually applies to "humorous" through the verb "are." You could reword the sentence as "Only humorous ads are effective."

As discussed in the original explanation, the argument does make a Mistaken Reversal, but the specific conditional statement that is Mistakenly Reversed is the second sentence of the stimulus, the premise - if humorous, then holds attention long enough to convey message.

Answer C is very tricky, as it describes a Mistaken Reversal, but describes the wrong conditional sentence. What it should say is "treats a condition necessary for something being humorous as if it were sufficient." The conditional premise involving effective ads (described in Answer C) is not the one that the argument Mistakenly Reverses.

[lsatstudent99966]

Hi lsatstudent,

First, I'm going to recommend that you reread the original explanation posted of this question, as it looks like one or two points were unclear to you.

The first sentence of the stimulus, which is the conclusion of the argument, does not mean the two things that you listed. It only means "if an ad is effective, then it must be humorous."

This can be diagrammed:

Ad. Eff. -> Hum.

It does not mean "if humorous, then the ad must be effective."

The wording of the first sentence can be tricky to diagram because the indicator words "the only" actually applies to "humorous" through the verb "are." You could reword the sentence as "Only humorous ads are effective."

As discussed in the original explanation, the argument does make a Mistaken Reversal, but the specific conditional statement that is Mistakenly Reversed is the second sentence of the stimulus, the premise - if humorous, then holds attention long enough to convey message.

Answer C is very tricky, as it describes a Mistaken Reversal, but describes the wrong conditional sentence. What it should say is "treats a condition necessary for something being humorous as if it were sufficient." The conditional premise involving effective ads (described in Answer C) is not the one that the argument Mistakenly Reverses.

Thank you so much! After reading your comment and rereading the original post, I have no more questions on this!