#24 - Market analyst: According to my research, 59 percent

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for asking, Katya! Notice that in the stimulus the credit card companies are looking to improve their services. That may be much more than just interest rates! How about cash back, or a mobile banking app? What about frequent flyer miles, or offering their users special deals that other cards don't get them (like the folks at Capital One Cafe offering users of a Capital One card half off on their coffee)? There's no reason to think that users won't care about what card they use, because different cards may offer different benefits. They may not care about the interest rate, but they could still want that cheap coffee and those airline miles!

[Katya W]

Haha, good point. Sometimes I get so fixated on no outside information I literally forget common sense

Thank you!

[fdfhhjbfsj]

My doubt still remains though, having read it all the explanatons the best of my time and attentions allowance.

@Nikki Siclunov's explanation starts with the assumption that the interest rates are irrelevant, because the consumers 'never plan to carry a balance', never 'plan'.

They expect to pay before, that does not automatically mean they ' 'never' plan on carrying a balance'.
Maybe they pay before the interest starts to accrue specifically because of the interest rates the company charges them, to relatively poor people no matter how low the interest rate is it would matter a lot.
Which may be considered outside info but the stimulus mentions 'consumers' and that is a very broad term.
We just can not infer whether interest rates matter or not here.
Anticipating one thing is not never planning another. Hence, we can not get behind or reason the confident claim of choice B.
Also the second supportive statement is too weak to be making such strong claims about what could be and could not be.

'tend' is used for what they are expected to do and choice B makes a bold claim in counter of that about what they just would not do. Just because the companies tend to concenterate on something that does not necessarily mean they 'always' will. They could just concenterate on anything, this choice does not even establish competition.

The support is just too insufficient in all manners for choice B to be anywhere near true, by this manner of explanation atleast or my understanding is just whacked.

@ James Finch's explanation makes the same assumption, that just because the consumers anticipate something that means that 'they are going to pay the balance each month' and 'no interest will 'ever' accrue. 'so the majority of consumers would not care about interest rates, since they do not 'expect' to 'ever' be dealing with them.'
That again seems so counterintuitive as the consumers only 'expect' to 'PAY BEFORE', how can we just assume that they 'do not expect to 'ever' be dealing with the interest rates'.

The consumers expect paying off their balances in full before a certain period.
How do we know for sure that the 'before the interest starts to accrue' is not just a marker of the time period, according to me we can't tell if it is just that or not, insufficent data, am i wrong?
How and why do we assume that just because they do aniticipate to 'PAY BEFORE', that automatically means that they 'do not care about the interest rates' as the selection of choice B would indicate. Just because you expect to not get in an accident does not mean the seatbelt would not matter to you. You would still consider it a necessity generally depending.

SO who makes the rules about what is to be assumed and what not. This is the exact reason i have been struggling with deductions and inferences, for they are just too flimsily supported or explained.
I crossed out all the choices and then chose E because of the stimulus stating the '' consumers' 'intentions' to 'only' use credit cards to avoid carrying cash and cheques. ''

So although the choice was strong, atleast it was in the ballpark, unlike this highly assumptive answer in my opinion for now.

Thank you everybody,
S.C.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi S.C.!

Happy to try to provide some clarity on this one.

There are some markers in the stimulus that limit what is being discussed, specifically phrases that include:

• "According to my research,"

• "This research also suggests ..."

• "Therefore, my research would lead us ..."

In other words, the premises and conclusions are only about the author's research and what it shows. The author's research shows that most people in the research (59 percent) don't accrue interest. Faced with the task of making the most reasonable interpretation of just that aspect of the research, does it lend more support to the idea that a credit card's interest rate makes a huge impact or a negligible impact on those people? Even if we don't know answers to broader questions about whether interest rates actually impact people, we only need to be dealing with what can most reasonably be gleaned from the author's research alone. Certainly that research points in the direction of negligible impact over huge impact.

In addition, the second sentence refers to what customers are "most interested in." Even if it were supposed that interest rates somehow impacted customers, surely the research doesn't point to the conclusion that interest rates are what they would be "most" interested in. That research finds that most people in the research never pay interest. Making the most reasonable interpretation of the research, does it really support to the idea that a credit card's interest rate is what people would be "most" interested in? This seems implausible.

That is why answer choice (B) is correct. (B) states that "credit card companies would not make the interest rates they charge on cards the main selling point." Most people in the research don't pay interest, and the research also suggests that companies want to target what they are "most" interested in. Taken together, the research suggests that companies will want to target something other than the interest rate.

It's possible that perhaps no one will in fact care about anything other than the interest rate and maybe this is what companies will eventually target anyways. But that's outside the bounded limit that this question deals with, which solely involve what can most reasonably be inferred about the author's research. It's also even possible that an interest rate impacts those people in the research (e.g., maybe it impacts their peace of mind, even though it doesn't have a financial impact), but that too is unnecessary to speculate about, for surely the research at least suggests that the interest rate is probably not the top on their list as the most important thing to find in a credit card.

[fdfhhjbfsj]

How does one know what limits are set?

You quoted a few markers, but those were just the sources of the statements that followed. How is the possibility that the interest rates may matter out of scope? I just can not seem to understand. I have only so many more questions, the combination of the word 'tend' alongwith 'most interested in', you considered 'most interested in' alone.

Also i just can not seem to be able to keep questioning anymore, i just wished i couldve learned the reason, so i hope you will pardon me for not elaborating on all the questions.

Thank you for your time and effort, greatly appreciated.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi S.C,

When in doubt, focus on the conclusion. The conclusion the analyst is trying to draw starts with "my research would lead us to expect that...". Because of that language, we know our correct answer choice is based on the research reported in the premises. So we turn to what that research says. The research says that most people indicate that they ONLY intend to use the cards to avoid carrying cash. So what will those people care about when choosing a card? They won't be looking at interest rates---they haven't DONE anything with the cards yet. They are still only working off their intentions. Sure, maybe they are wrong about how they will use the card. But that doesn't matter for which card they pick.

Hope that helps!

[fdfhhjbfsj]

Hi S.C,

When in doubt, focus on the conclusion. The conclusion the analyst is trying to draw starts with "my research would lead us to expect that...". Because of that language, we know our correct answer choice is based on the research reported in the premises. So we turn to what that research says. The research says that most people indicate that they ONLY intend to use the cards to avoid carrying cash. So what will those people care about when choosing a card? They won't be looking at interest rates---they haven't DONE anything with the cards yet. They are still only working off their intentions. Sure, maybe they are wrong about how they will use the card. But that doesn't matter for which card they pick.

Hope that helps!

Well, i am still trying to wrap my head around it but it is taking too much time so i m just gonna move on, thank you guys so much for the help, i am very grateful for the efforts. You are free to delete my posts, again, as i would not like to confuse others. Thanks so much again!!

[fdfhhjbfsj]

Hi S.C,

When in doubt, focus on the conclusion. The conclusion the analyst is trying to draw starts with "my research would lead us to expect that...". Because of that language, we know our correct answer choice is based on the research reported in the premises. So we turn to what that research says. The research says that most people indicate that they ONLY intend to use the cards to avoid carrying cash. So what will those people care about when choosing a card? They won't be looking at interest rates---they haven't DONE anything with the cards yet. They are still only working off their intentions. Sure, maybe they are wrong about how they will use the card. But that doesn't matter for which card they pick.

Hope that helps!

Wait, So after so much confusion, i think i am somewhat getting it. I made the mistake of thinking about circumstances outside of the research. Okay okay, now i see it, if we had the sentence alone in the manner 'most people anticipate' then we would have considered all possibilities, but since it is limited to the research and the research does not mention anything about these people not meeting their anticipated intentions, that means no doubt can be shed on their anticipations not happening, because the research does not mention any such circumstances. AM i right? In that case, obviously we can take it that since they do not anticipate further than paying off before the due date 'according to the research' then the interest rates are not of importance according to the researchs findings, but without the limiting by the research we could not have made any such inferences. And so yes the companies will may not focus on the interest rates as their main selling points. It still does not make airtight sense but i finally understood what you were trying to explain. Thank you again, ESL and logic are tough together lol

[mollylynch]

I chose A because I thought that since they are only using cards to "avoid carrying cash and writing checks" so it would not matter which one they use.

[Adam Tyson]

From my earlier post in this thread:

There's no reason to think that users won't care about what card they use, because different cards may offer different benefits. They may not care about the interest rate, but they could still want that cheap coffee and those airline miles!

Answer A is a very bold statement, and you would need much stronger evidence to support it. They might care a lot about which card they use if different cards offer different benefits. It's just the interest rate that they won't care about.