#15 - Advertisement: In a carefully controlled study

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning—#%. The correct answer choice is (A)

The advertisement describes a carefully controlled study of consumer preference for Sparkle Cola. To test how well Sparkle Cola stacks up against each of five competing colas, the study divided the participants into five groups, each group tasting a different cola. How did Sparkle Cola fare in each group? We don’t know. All we know is that most of the volunteers preferred Sparkle Cola to the competing cola tested. The author takes that to mean that Sparkle elicits a more favorable response from consumers than any of the competing colas tested. The last sentence is the conclusion of the argument, which is implied by the conclusion indicator “this shows that.”

The conclusion commits an Error of Division, attributing a characteristic of the whole group to each part of the group. Since the volunteers were divided evenly into five groups, it is possible that an overwhelming number of volunteers in, say, just two of the groups preferred Sparkle to the other brands of cola. To see this, let’s assume that the study divided 100 volunteers into 5 groups of 20 volunteers, and the results were as follows:

Oct 13_LR1_#15.png

In this hypothetical, most volunteers (60) preferred Sparkle to the competing cola tested, a result consistent with the results of the study described in the stimulus. However, contrary to what the advertisement claims, in only two of the groups—groups A and B—did Sparkle elicit a more favorable response than the competing colas. In the remaining three groups, colas C, D, and E elicited a slightly more favorable response than Sparkle did. Understanding this flaw before you approach the answer choices is crucial to answering this question quickly and accurately.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. The advertisement overlooks the possibility that a generalization true of the entire group of volunteers, most of whom preferred Sparkle to the competing cola tested, was not true of each of the individual groups, some (or most) of whom could have expressed preference for the competing cola.

Answer choice (B): The advertisement makes no assumptions regarding the hypothetical purchasing decisions made by the volunteers in the study. The only issue relevant to the conclusion is whether Sparkle tastes better than the competing colas.

Answer choice (C): The advertisement only claims that Sparkle Cola is preferable to any of the competing colas tested, not to any other cola on the market. Thus, even if some cola not tested in the study would have elicited a more favorable response than Sparkle Cola, that would not weaken the conclusion of the argument.

Answer choice (D): The advertisement does not overlook the possibility that people may prefer Sparkle Cola for reasons such as the packaging or price. On the contrary: the study was designed to eliminate such bias. That is why the volunteers were blindfolded.

Answer choice (E): The advertisement never argued that Sparkle tastes better than beverages other than colas: the only comparisons drawn are between Sparkle and other colas. Therefore, the study does not need to elicit consumers’ responses to such beverages.

[maximbasu]

Hello,
I chose D as the correct answer while the correct answer was A.

I reasoned that the answer choice gives other possible alternative justifications for the people in the study wanting to buy Sparkle Cola instead of the taste, which I thought was the main point of the stimulus.

To me, A doesn't make sense because how does that tell you anything about taste and being favorable?

Thank you, Maxim.

[Adam Tyson]

To understand this numbers-related flaw, imagine this:

We start with 100 people and divide them into 5 groups of 20.

4 of the groups get Sparkle and some competing cola that is, frankly, awful. Sparkle is not awful - it's just so-so, palatable without displeasure. Better than a kick in the pants, but not much more than that.

Group 5 gets Sparkle and some fantastically delicious cola that makes them swoon. It's so good that any human in their right mind would pick it over that mediocre Sparkle junk.

Numerically, what happened? 80 people preferred Sparkle to the dreck that they had to compare it to. 20 people rejected Sparkle and selected the magical, perfect cola of the Gods.

Our author concluded that consumers (generally) prefer Sparkle to ANY of the competitors tested, but this isn't borne out by the study. If only the poor souls in the first 4 groups had been given the chance to taste the tantalizing elixir that Group 5 got, Sparkle would have lost every time, hands down, right? That's what's wrong with the study - what was true of the whole (80 of the 100 people in my hypothetical study) may not have been true of each of the 5 groups, and therefore might not be true at all.

The problem with D is that the study has nothing to do with buying Sparkle - it has to do only with how blindfolded people respond to it when compared to other colas in a blind taste test. The author didn't conclude anything about what choices people will make once they are actually shopping, just about how they responded to the comparison, and most of them responded more favorably to Sparkle than to the particular competitor they tasted.

Think about those numbers! When numbers are introduced into a LR stimulus (5 even groups here), imagine what those numbers might mean and what they do and do not prove. Most of the time, arguments involving numbers and percentages are flawed because of some problem with the use of those numbers or percentages.

Good luck!

[nutcracker]

Hi,

I'm still a bit uneasy about answer choice (D). To me, the argument in the stimulus is problematic in that it draws a conclusion that is too broad to be supported by the evidence. Based on an experiment with volunteers and on taste only, the advertisement concludes that Sparkle Cola elicits a more favorable response from consumers. Thus answer choice (D) seems to be directly attacking this flaw in the reasoning.

I understand that answer choice (A) makes a lot of sense, but I want to make sure that the flaw I see in the argument is actually acceptable in LSAT. Is what (D) describes not a flaw in the argument? Thanks!

[Eric Ockert]

Hi!

Answer choice (D) might be a correct answer on a Flaw in the Reasoning question, but it would have to be a different argument in the stimulus. (D) really sounds like an alternate cause answer on a flawed causal argument. If the author in the stimulus had showed that Sparkle Cola was preferred by consumers and then went on to conclude that taste had to be the cause for that preference, then it might be the flaw that the author failed to consider that other aspects of the cola, such as price or packaging, might actually be what caused consumers to prefer it.

But here, the claim is not that taste is causing consumers to prefer Sparkle. The premises show consumers blindly choosing Sparkle Cola in the study based on its taste. That fact is not really up for debate as it is a premise, not the conclusion. But the author is making some bold assumptions about the results to claim that most of the consumers prefer Sparkle to the other beverages tested. And, as explained before, those numbers don't necessarily add up.

Hope that helps!

[nutcracker]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your reply! My concern with the argument was that, as I said, based on an experiment with volunteers and on taste only, the advertisement concludes that Sparkle Cola elicits a more favorable response from consumers. The difference between "volunteers" and "consumers", and between "prefer the taste" and "more favorable response" looks a bit like a scope shift to me, which usually is a red flag in LSAT. Is this more or less ignored here because it is the less of the two flaws? Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

I'm not sure there is any shift in scope here, nutcracker - the stimulus says that the volunteers in the study "preferred Sparkle Cola to the competing cola tasted", and that is another way of saying they had a more favorable response. Also, any study or survey is going to project its findings onto a broader group, so moving from the volunteers to consumers generally isn't a shift in scope, but just an ordinary projection from the study results to the bigger world. If the study was well done and the volunteers were a representative sample of the whole, that would be an acceptable shift (taking into account some margin of error, of course).

Be careful about reading - the stimulus did NOT say that the volunteers preferred the TASTE of Sparkle, but that they preferred it (meaning overall). Taste may have been a factor, but so might something like level of carbonation, mouth feel, smell, etc.

[chen_3456]

Hi!
I understand that A is correct, but I can't help but think that this is a problematic test question. The biggest problem is that "consumer" can both mean "someone who drinks or eat a specific food or beverage" or "someone who purchases a product". If the question takes the former meaning, then D can be easily dismissed because in this case, "consumers" is synonymous with the "volunteers" in the stimulus.

However, if we interpret consumer as the second meaning, namely people who purchase Colas, D actually makes sense. If "consumers" refers to shoppers who buy Colas, the conclusion is deducing what applies to a different population from the study. What makes the study participants different than the consumers is the fact that consumers are not blindfolded, therefore are able to judge the Colas based on not only taste but visual attractions. That is how this difference challenges the conclusion in the stimulus.

[chen_3456]

I misread answer D.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi chen,

Take a look at both Eric and Adam's responses about answer choice D above, because I think they both do a very good job of describing why answer choice D just doesn't hit the mark here.

Also go back to the overall explanation to this question at the beginning of the thread. The advertisement doesn't "overlook" the possibility that there are consumers who might be drawn in by packaging or price. Rather, the study was designed specifically to exclude those factors (by blindfolding the volunteers). In other words, the argument is limiting itself to a preference based on taste. So those other factors are irrelevant here.

As to the "scope shift" you're seeing, which is something nutcracker asked about above, I agree with Adam that the "shift" in the conclusion isn't all that dramatic. The author is assuming, yes, that the volunteers are representative of consumers when it comes to taste. And you might question whether that's a good assumption or not. But answer choice D isn't giving any factual basis to question that "representativeness" assumption (at least as to taste), because the answer is not about the taste issue specifically. As to the language of "more favorable response," I tend to agree with Adam that it's pretty clear what the author means by that: a favorable response to the taste of the beverage. Is there a little subjectivity in that interpretation? I suppose. But I'm not bothered by that, because we have such a clear and good description of an obvious problem in the argument in answer choice A. So don't let D distract you!

Not sure if this will be fully satisfying, but I hope it helps!