LR Question 15 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Marketing consultant: Last year I predicted that LRG’s…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: The advertising campaign was bad.
REASONING: Sales were bad.
ANALYSIS: There are many factors that go into sales. Advertising is one, but product quality is also important, as is the economy, luck, competition, etc.
This is a causation-correlation error. The marketing consultant has shown a correlation between poor sales and the advertising campaign, but they haven’t shown the campaign caused the low sales.
___________
- Very tempting answer. But think about what this actually means. If the ad campaign produced even a single sale, then sales would have been “lower still” in the absence of that campaign.
The marketing consultant isn’t arguing that the campaign was so useless that it failed to make even a single sale. Instead, they’re arguing that campaign was not particularly effective.
Note: Competitor in this case refers to the competing consultant, I believe, though the sentence is ambiguous.
Example of flaw: Sales were poor after the new advertising campaign. So clearly, the advertising campaign didn’t lead to a single sale. - CORRECT. There are multiple factors in any sale. Even the best advertising campaign might fail to produce sales if the economy is weak.
- The author didn’t say this.
Example of flaw: The new smartphone is new, so it will definitely sell better than all old smartphones. - The author didn’t say this.
Example of flaw: The popular, established product sells better than this new, poorly manufactured product. The difference must be because of the effective advertising of the old product. - This describes a sufficient-necessary error. The argument didn’t do this.
Example of flaw: To sell well, a product needs good advertising. This product has good advertising, so it will sell well.
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.
B would explain low sales in general, but how does it account for the fact, that the new products performed so much worse than the old ones? I chose D, but see why that was wrong now.
Could another hypothetical conclusion for the marketing consultant’s argument that would fit answer (A) be “The sales figures are low … Therefore they should not have used the campaign at all” ?
I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at. Let’s use some numbers:
Year one sales: 2000
Year two sales: 1200
Year two sales with no campaign: 1000
The consultant is arguing that the campaign was ill advised because sales are low this year. The year two sales are what support that.
A is saying the consultant believes that the campaign actually hurt sales. If sales “would be lower still in the absence of a campaign” then that means the campaign did increase sales somewhat. The consultant might believe this.
It’s possible that these are sales numbers:
No campaign: 1000
Bad campaign: 1200
Good campaign: 2000
The consultant might believe the competing campaign was bad compared to a good campaign. But that doesn’t commit them to believing that the campaign is utterly useless, which is what A says.
Is it possible to elaborate on answer choice (A) ?
What exactly don’t you understand?