#22 - Consumer advocate: Economists reason that price

[Brook Miscoski]

Howard,

I believe that you are asking how to tell that the last sentence is the conclusion and that the claim that "willingness to pay is not proportional to need" is not the conclusion.

I think that the easiest way, not necessarily the only way, is to compare the two sentences and ask yourself which one takes a step farther. The last sentence makes the additional claim that price increases will allocate goods to people with more money, not to people with more need. That's why you eliminate (B), because the last sentence is the main conclusion.

Another reason is that the last sentence is where the stimulus reaches its rejection of the economists' position, so that last sentence is the conclusion. You are set up by the overall structure and tone to expect the conclusion to directly oppose the economists.

An indicator is also "as a result," which is a good start but not where you finish because it can be used for an intermediate conclusion. Remember, you are correct to be looking for those indicators, but you still need to confirm. If you have nothing else to go on, it's a strong chance that those indicators show where the main conclusion is.

[LSAT2018]

Hi M,

The difference between answer choices (A) and (E) lies in the way the argument is structured. The consumer advocate is arguing against the economists' claim that price gouging is efficient by denying the premise upon which it is based, that willingness to pay corresponds with need. If answer (A) were correct, the consumer advocate woudl be agreeing with the economists' claim, but for a different reason. (E) is correct because it mirrors both the denial of the economists' premise ("denies a claim") and rejection of the conclusion ("reasoning it rejects").

Hope this helps!

So if answer (A) were correct, the consumer advocate would be saying pricing gouging is efficient because _____ (an alternative explanation). But the advocate doesn't seem to say that pricing gouging is efficient. Instead, he corrects the economists' assumption that price gouging allocates goods to people whose willingness to pay more shows that they need those goods.

[Adam Tyson]

Correct! Disagreeing with an explanation means coming up with alternatives that do a better job of reaching the same conclusion, or supporting the same circumstances. In this stimulus, the author came to an opposing conclusion, rather than just finding a better way to reach the same one.

[Pragmatism]

I incorrectly chose B as an answer choice assuming it to be the main conclusion. After reviewing the thread, I am uncertain as to how a “claim” is being constituted as a premise, when my belief was that it meant a conclusion.

Hi M,

The difference between answer choices (A) and (E) lies in the way the argument is structured. The consumer advocate is arguing against the economists' claim that price gouging is efficient by denying the premise upon which it is based, that willingness to pay corresponds with need. If answer (A) were correct, the consumer advocate woudl be agreeing with the economists' claim, but for a different reason. (E) is correct because it mirrors both the denial of the economists' premise ("denies a claim") and rejection of the conclusion ("reasoning it rejects").

Hope this helps!

Can someone please clarify that point.

So, the way I am reading answer choice E is as follows:

—denies a claim (refusing to accept the economist’s conclusion that price gouging is efficient because no alternative seller can provide the needed goods) that the argument takes to be assumed (I am assuming it means, consumers’ willingness to pay is not proportional to [their] need, which is illustrated in the real world sentence) in the reasoning that it rejects (the premise stating: consumers willingness to pay more shows that they really need those goods, whereas the consumer advocates falsely equivocates “really need those goods” with “those with the most need”).

[Robert Carroll]

Pragmatism,

A "claim" is anything that the author (or anyone else, for that matter) states is the case. It may thus be a premise, a conclusion, or just completely extraneous information. If the author claims that a certain thing is true, then infers another statement from that initial claim, the claim is a premise. If the author claims that a certain things is true because another thing is true, then the claim is a conclusion. "Claim" does not universally refer to the same part of an argument in every case. A claim is really just something the author puts forward as a true statement.

When answer choice (E) refers to the "claim" that the consumer advocate denies, that claim is a purported assumption of the contrary argument. The conclusion of the contrary argument is that price gouging is efficient. The reasoning behind that contrary argument relies on an assumption about a true connection between willingness to pay and need. The "claim" denied by the consumer advocate is that assumption. Because the contrary argument (at least according to the consumer advocate) relies on that assumption, the advocate thinks he/she can prove that argument wrong by knocking down the assumption. So the advocate denies that willingness to pay is proportional to need (the assumption) in order to show that price gouging is not efficient. Because the economists were arguing that price gouging IS efficient, this constitutes a rejection of their conclusion.

If you realize that a claim can be a premise, I think your misunderstanding will disappear.

Robert Carroll

[Pragmatism]

Thank you

[ronibass]

I had answer choice E as a contender but I rejected it because of the words "takes to be assumed". My question is what exactly is the assumption that is being made in the stimulus? Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

In the argument that the author is rejecting, ronibass, the Economists must be assuming that willingness to pay is proportional to need. That is, the more you need something, the more you will pay for it. Our author explicitly rejects that assumption and thereby rejects the entire argument made by the Economists. What a painfully worded answer choice! It's designed to make our heads hurt, for sure.

[LeBronSAT]

DS72,

Good question. As usual, having an accurate, concise description of the argument in your own words is the best way to get Method of Reasoning questions right.

But let's assume that we're a little shaky on what's going on here. In that case, you need to match the elements of the answer choice to the corresponding concepts in the passage. Answer Choice (A) claims that the claim about "willingness not being proportional to need" disputes one explanation to make way for another explanation. The first question you should ask yourself is, "What's the explanation here?" There is in fact no explanation; instead there is reasoning about the "efficiency" of markets. The consumer advocate reaches a different conclusion: price gouging is not efficient because he disputes the validity of the assumption that willingness to pay is in fact proportional to need in price gouging scenarios. Thus, we are not dealing with "explanations" here. Instead we are dealing with differing conclusions about some quality of price gouging: is it efficient or inefficient?

Lorettan102 and 15veries,

Let's check out the answer you chose. Let's see whether this statement works as a main conclusion. Certainly it has some reasoning backing it up in the subsequent statements about "the real world." However, are we done yet when we arrive at this claim about "willingness to pay not being proportional to need"? No actually, now we ask ourselves: so what? Why does this consumer advocate care that willingness to pay is not proportional to need?

He's telling us this because he disagrees with these economists. Specifically, what does he disagree with? He disagrees with their contention that price gouging is efficient. Thus it is not the main conclusion, rather it is a consideration that the consumer advocate offers to support a conclusion at odds with that of the economists. Answer Choice (E) gives a precise match for this scenario. The key word really is match!

What is the difference between a claim and an explanation?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi LeBron,

Robert's answer about five posts above this one gives an excellent description of a "claim," so definitely read that.

An explanation is "a reason or justification for an action or belief."

In the stimulus, the economists argue that price gouging is efficient, and their explanation for this is that "it allocates goods whose willingness to pay more shows that they really need those goods."

The problem with Answer A (the most popular wrong answer and the one that uses the word "explanation") is actually the second half of the answer "to make way for an alternative explanation" (for the same conclusion). In other words, this would be describing a situation in which the consumer advocate did agree that price gouging was efficient but for a different reason/explanation than the one offered by the economists. Of course, that's not what happens here. The consumer advocate completely disagrees with the idea that price gouging is efficient.