LR Question 21 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Economics professor: Marty’s Pizza and Checkers Pizza…
QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption
CONCLUSION: Checkers wanted to hurt Marty’s pizza when it refused the coupons.
REASONING: Accepting the coupons would have cost Checkers nothing and pleased Checkers’ customers.
ANALYSIS: We know two things about Checkers.
- They would not have been hurt by accepting the coupons.
- They would have pleased their customers.
We’re trying to prove that Checkers refused because it wanted to hurt Marty’s. We can prove the argument correct by showing that refusing + 1 or 2 above = wanting to hurt a competitor. Either one of these would work:
No harm to accepting, but company refuses ➞ motive to hurt competitor, OR
Customers would have been pleased, but company refuses ➞ motive to hurt competitor
___________
- CORRECT. This is the second sufficient-necessary statement above. We know Checkers could have pleased some customers, but they refused the coupons. This proves that their only motive must have been to hurt Marty’s.
- This tells us what happens when a company wants to hurt a competitor. But we don’t know that’s true of Checkers….that’s what we’re trying to prove!
- So, one company wants to hurt a competitor. But is it Checkers pizza, or some unrelated company?
- This tells us why Checkers might have thought refusing the coupons would hurt Marty’s. But it doesn’t tell us that Checker’s did refuse the coupon’s in order to hurt Marty’s. They might have had some other reason. Maybe Checkers’ owner is philosophically opposed to coupons?
- This is completely off target. Checkers would have satisfied customers by accepting coupons. Further, this answer choice only lets us conclude that someone was motivated to help customers. We want to conclude Checkers was motivated to hurt a competitor.
More Resources for Sufficient Assumption Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: Learn conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Sufficient Assumption questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers sufficient assumption questions.
Hi! Sorry, I’m still somewhat baffled by B, could you explain why it is incorrect? I think it’s a Mistaken Reversal? Problem was, I selected it when I did this practice test instead of A and I’m still trying to figure out how to avoid that.
Hi!
B says:
If wish to hurt competitor -> refuse to accept when 0 cost & satisfy customers
The contrapositive is: If accept -> not wish to hurt competitor
The issue with both the original and the contrapositive is that we can’t prove that either applies to Checkers.
We don’t know that they wanted to hurt the competitors. That’s what we’re asked to prove. And the contrapositive also can’t apply, because they didn’t accept.
So it’s not a mistaken reversal. It’s a valid conditional statement. It’s just not within the universe we exist in because we can’t assume that Checkers is trying to hurt Marty’s (that’s the end goal we want to reach/prove).
On the other hand, A is:
refuses to accept when pleased customers -> wish to hurt competitor
Not wish to hurt competitor -> accept when pleased customers
This allows us to reach the conclusion that they wished to hurt competitors.
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have further questions.
I have a question about this one. Why is this an OR situation rather than an AND situation? Couldn’t it be true that accepting the coupons might please Checkers’ customers but also hurt it financially? But, answer A says that in that case Checkers’ motivation would still be to hurt Marty’s.
So two things:
1. The stimulus said accepting the coupons would not harm Checkers, so we accept that unless contradicted
2. We’re looking for something sufficient. The rule in A says if you refuse coupons that would please your customers, your motive must be to harm. And whatever else is true, Checkers DID refuse the coupons.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.