LR Question 18 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Computer store manager: Last year we made an average…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: We should sell only low end models.
REASONING: We make a higher profit margin on low end models. So we’ll make more profits by selling low end models.
ANALYSIS: Note that any sentence with ‘should’ is usually the conclusion.
This argument confuses profits and profit margins. Profit margins are percentages: you make, for example, 8% of the sale price.
Profits are dollar amounts: you make, for example, $500 whenever you sell a certain computer.
High end computers might be more profitable, even if they have a lower margin. I’d rather make 5% of a $2000 sale than 10% of a $400 sale. That’s $100 instead of $40.
___________
- CORRECT. See the explanation above. I’d rather get more money from a high end sale, even if the profit percentage is lower.
- This doesn’t quite work. If you sell the same amount of computers of each type, you’re still making a higher margin on the low end models.
- So? The point is that lower end models have a higher profit margin. You might prefer that the customer buys the low end model.
- The manager doesn’t say profits are the only objective. But his proposal seems like it will increase profits without harming other objectives. That’s a win.
- Well duh. Sales are always going to fluctuate. But there’s no reason to believe low end sales will be consistently worse than high end sales in the future.
More Resources for Flaw Questions
- Flaw drills: Use these to practice making examples of abstract flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flaw questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flaw questions.
Does this argument have more than just a percent/amount flaw, and could a flaw question conceivably have more than one flaw in the stimulus? Hypothetically, if there were an answer choice that said, “the argument fails to consider that maximizing profits is not the only consideration in deciding how many low vs. high end models should be sold,” could this be a correct answer? I picked D at first because I thought that’s what D was getting at, though I understand now that D is wrong because the argument does not presume profit maximization is the *sole* objective. Thanks!
LSAT flaw questions could technically include more than one flaw, but they’re designed in a way that there is one flaw that most directly and obviously undermines the argument’s reasoning.
In this case, the argument doesn’t necessarily assume that maximizing profit is the sole objective. It simply focuses on profit as the chosen goal. You can read the conclusion in 2 ways: (1) other considerations have been weighed, though not mentioned, and it is still the best idea to sell only low-end models due to profits; or (2) other considerations have been ignored in favor of only profits. We don’t know if it is one or the other.
That’s why D is wrong: we can’t prove that there is any unjustified assumption about profit being the only thing that matters. The real flaw is in confusing percentage with actual profit: higher percentage profit on low-end models doesn’t necessarily mean higher total profit. A gets this exactly right by pointing out that high-end models might earn more money per sale, which directly challenges the conclusion.
TLDR: unless the stimulus explicitly claims something is the only consideration, just focusing on one aspect (like profit) usually won’t be the main flaw. Hope that helps!
That helps, thanks so much!