#24 - Consumer advocate: The manufacturer’s instructions for

[bricbas]

Ok, so firstly I'm not sure what to classify this question as.

Secondly, I'm not sure c is justified enough. In my opinion it relies on the vagueness of "very easy". On an easy scale of 1-10, if assembling the product WITHOUT the instructions was a 9/10, I'd say that's "very easy". However, that still leaves room for a "perfectly easy", and the instructions could be written in such a way as to make it completely and flawlessly easy, 10/10, to assemble a product. If there's this vagueness I'd say it allows the principle to be followed.

I narrowed it down to A and C.

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for asking, bricbas. The question stem here is asking us to make the principle less than perfectly applicable or less than completely valuable, which makes this a type of weaken question. More important than classifying it, though, is understanding it, and it seems that you understood the goal well enough without the convenience of a label for the type. That's great! That's really all the different labels we apply are used for - convenience, a shortcut towards greater understanding. Sometimes we get some seriously weird question stems that even some top LSAT instructors have a hard time classifying, and some of us argue about what to call it. At the end of the day, though, the labels don't matter, as long as you know what you are supposed to do.

So let's weaken the principle here. We don't need to destroy it, or even do major damage to it, because all the stem asked us to do is to weaken it by showing that it cannot always be followed. Just one situation where it can't be followed would do the job.

What's the principle? To paraphrase, it is "instructions should make it MUCH easier" (emphasis added). How do we weaken that? Show that just one time the instructions don't make things MUCH easier. Maybe they only help a little, maybe they are useless, maybe they even get in the way.

Answer C gives us a situation where most of the time assembly without the instructions is already VERY easy (more added emphasis here) and the instructions essentially unnecessary. How much room is there in this case for the instructions to make things MUCH easier? Sure, it's all a bit vague and undefined, but those concepts of very and much are still generally easy to understand. If it's very easy to assemble something without the instructions, could the instructions really make it much easier? Perhaps, but I think we could probably agree that they probably could not most of the time. While that may not be a perfect answer, showing the principle to be completely inapplicable, it is good enough to fit what the stem asked for. It may not be a perfect answer, but it is far and away the best answer of the five answers we were given, and so we have to pick it.

That last point is crucial, and one I harp on in this forum all the time - we should never argue with answers, never spend time focused on why an answer isn't good, because we have little interest in good answers on this test. The instructions say nothing about good answers or right answers, but instead tell us only to pick the best answer. That means if 4 answers are pure junk and one answer is only partially junky, that partially junky answer is the best one and is the credited response. Pick it and move along, quickly and confidently, without worrying about whether that answer should have been better than it was.

Keep up the good work!

[freddythepup]

Hi, for this question I did get the correct answer, but I'm wondering if you can go through all the answer choices to explain why they are definitely wrong. Even though I picked the right answer, I kind of doubt myself when looking at the other answer choices, since after reading the explanation that if C shows that the instructions can't be made that much easier anyways if people don't need it, wouldn't the other 4 answer choices also apply similarly?

[Jennifer Janowsky]

Sure thing, Freddy!

To review, the consumer advocate believes the instructions to a product should be written so that they make construction much easier than it would be without having instructions. You are looking for an answer choice that undermines the idea that this should always be followed.

Answer (A) is incorrect--Just because assembly of a product is very difficult with instructions does not necessarily mean it wouldn't be even harder without them.

Answer (B) is incorrect because it is irrelevant--just because some consumers do not have to assemble the product themselves doesn't mean quality instructions shouldn't be included for others who must assemble themselves.

Answer (C) is the correct answer, because in a case like this where the assembly might be self explanatory already, it would be difficult for instructions to make construction much easier than not having them.

Answer (D) is incorrect because how understandable instructions are already should not mean the consumer advocate can not argue for that practice to continue.

And, lastly, (E) is incorrect. Just because people elect not to look at the instructions does not mean anything about what their quality should be.

I hope those explanations make sense to you. Happy studying!

[Tuothekhazar]

Thank you, Powerscore for being here everyday with me...

I believe that I understand the core of the argument, and also the reason why most of people are struggling with it. Please allow me to post my train of thinking regarding this question, and please critic me to help me get better.

The core principle here is really simple, and could be explained as -

The degree of feeling easier to put the product together of (Most customer / instruction available ) > The degree of feeling easier to put the product together of ( Most customer / Instruction unavailable )

In maths-wise, principle could be written as D( C/ IA ) > D ( C / IUA ), IA = ~ UIA, and ( C/ IA ) + ( C / IUA ) = MC

D = The degree of feeling easier to put the product together, ( C / IA ) = (Most customer / instruction available ), ( C / IUA ) = ( Most customer / Instruction unavailable ), and MC = Most of the customer.

The question apparently wants us to find if there is any case that this principle can't " always " follow as in the way that if under any circumstances, D( C/ IA ) < D ( C/ IUA ) or D( C/IA ) = D ( C/ IUA )

A. Unfortunately, we can not infer anything from this answer due to the subject discussed are totally different. In answer A, we are discussing Customer who " assemble product " , and apparently, we know both C/IA and C/ IUA all resemble the products. So, It is actually possible that regardless great difficulty exists, D( C/IA ) still permanently > D ( C/ IUA ). Definitely we are not eliminating the answer because of the varied subject discussed, but of the core of the answer fail to explicitly point out if D ( C/IA ) < or = ( C/ IUA ) would ever happened.

B. Just as the reason to eliminate A, the same applies to B as well.


C. Regardless of the subject discussed " seems " to be different; however, If the total number customer who assemble the product = {( C / IA ) + ( C / IUA ) } who assemble the product, then we are really discussing the same groups of customers, and It says that " most of the total number customers, without instructions, all feel very easy to assemble the product, then if the total number of the customer is 10, and most of the customer without instructions all feel very easy, then Could it be true that D ( C/IA ) < D ( C / IUA ) ? Yes ! as long as C/IUA > 6, and fortunately, C/IUA would never equal 50 due to the quantifier, most.

D. Tricky Tricky. ( C/ IA ) who assemble product has no difficulty. Ok, but it does not mean that D( C/IA ) would ever < or = ( C/ IUA )

E. Some of C will be ( C / IA ) only when they have difficulty. OK, but it does not mean that D ( C / IA ) would ever < or = D ( C / IUA ).

I might be wrong within my train of thoughts; however, I extremely enjoy employing math skills to crack some questions of LR and LG.

Hope this help, and Please let me know if I can offer any support.

[fortunateking]

Dear PS people,
What confused me is the MOST in the stimulus. As the principle states that it should make much easier for MOST (not all) consumers to assemble the products, then it seems to me that (C), it's not always the case that the instruction would make it much easier doesn't weaken the principle. As delicate a test lsat could be, I think the test makers use MOST here for a reason, otherwise why wouldn't they use ALL, or simply stating consumers instead of MOST consumers. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Robert Carroll]

fortunateking,

Answer choice (C) doesn't say "not always the case". Answer choice (C) says "most" just like the stimulus. If most people will assemble products easily, then those people can't really be helped, because there's no room to help them - things are just about as easy for them as they'll get. The rest of people, a minority, might get some help from easily-understood instructions, but not, as answer choice (C) says, "most" consumers. Thus, the instructions can't make things easier for "most" consumers, because only a minority are even able to be helped - those who didn't already find things easy.

Robert Carroll