#18 - For consumers, the most enjoyable emotional experience garnered from shopping is feeling lucky

[BigDogLittleBark]

Hi! Can someone please explain why C is correct? I guessed D and E over C... thanks!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi BigDog,

This is a tricky Main Point question, especially since there are no premise or conclusion indicator words to guide you. Do two things when you're having trouble identifying a main point: first, think about the intention of the author, i.e. what the author wants you as a reader to believe. One thing authors often try to get readers to believe is what I would call an "evaluative opinion": an evaluative opinion states how good or how bad something is, how well or how poorly someone is doing. The evaluative opinion in this stimulus is a little more subtle than most, but the author is essentially passing judgment on how well retailers are doing with using advertised price cuts. The author says that they're using such cuts TOO OFTEN. (In other words, they're doing badly with these things.) That evaluative opinion turns out to be the main point.

The other surefire way to identify a main point, is to think about which statement is supported by all the others in the stimulus. If a statement is made without giving a reason, it can't be a main point (i.e., a conclusion). That's because a conclusion, by definition, has to have premises given for it. Answer choice C has reasons given why it's true. Why are advertised price cuts overused (i.e. used "too often")? Because they have negative effects on the business (they cut into profit margins and undermine customer loyalty).

Answer choice D is incorrect, because, while the stimulus does say it, the stimulus doesn't give any explicit reasons/premises why it is true. Remember, something can't be a main point/conclusion if there are no premises supporting it.

Answer choice E is incorrect, because the stimulus never actually says this. The main point must be something stated in the stimulus.

I hope this helps!

[ArizonaRobin]

I noticed an interesting pattern doing an older test, PT 55. Whenever the author uses a pattern such as Premise A, however/but B OR Premise A, subject to B, then B is always the conclusion. I think that is what Jeremy is describing as an evaluative opinion. It is the thing after the however, but, or "subject to" that is really the meat of what the author is saying and, therefore, is the conclusion.

[Robert Carroll]

ArizonaRobin,

I would caution that I don't think that's universally true - for instance, PT 52, Section 1, Question 16 has "but" introducing a premise.

Robert Carroll

[Kangtime]

Hi,

I can see why C is the answer, but I am still struggling to see why D must be incorrect - I feel as if I am not understanding it correctly, and might make the same mistake again!

The logic I used to find D as the answer is as follows:

Retailers too often use price cuts, and THEREFORE they reduce profit marigins and undermines customer royalty.

I focused on the words TOO OFTEN, and that the high frequency of the sales CAUSED the reduction of profit margins and undermining of customer loyalty, and therefore thought D was the answer.

Is this an unwarranted assumption? Am I wrong because the promotions "of this sort" emphasizes that these effects do not come from the high frequency of the sales, but rather the nature of the sale itself, even if it only happens once?

And how can I clearly see that D is a support for C?

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

One way to eliminate answer D, Kangtime, is to recognize that there is no evidence offered to prove it. A conclusion can only exist if there is some evidence - a premise - used by the author to try to prove that it is true. Our author never gives us any reason to believe that these promotions cut into profits and undermine loyalty; they just say it and expect us to accept that it's true!

Once you see that there is no premise offered in support of that claim, you can safely eliminate it from contention. From there, ask yourself what that statement is doing in the argument. If it isn't a conclusion, is it being used as a premise? If it's true that these promotions have those harmful effects, what would that support? And that's how we get to the correct answer - that statement, if true, would mean that these promotions are not beneficial, and the closest thing we have to that inference is that they are used "too often." That's ultimately what the author seeks to prove here - that these promotions, while based on a good idea in general (making customers feel lucky), they are a bad choice.

One important thing to recognize in this case is that the premises do not actually prove that conclusion (in my opinion). But that's not the issue, because it's not up to us to determine whether the conclusion is valid based solely on the evidence presented. Our job is just to figure out which of these claims the author is trying to prove, using at least some evidence, and the "too often" claim is the only part of the stimulus that fits that description.

[Kangtime]

Thank you for the expalanation Adam!