LR Question 18 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: For consumers, the most enjoyable emotional experience…
QUESTION TYPE: Identify the Conclusion
CONCLUSION: Retailers use price cuts too often.
REASONING: Price cuts reduce profit margins. This is true even though price cuts make consumers feel lucky.
ANALYSIS: The word “but” is a conclusion indicator. On an easier “identify the conclusion” question, that’s all you would need to look for.
But here, the word “but” is used twice. So you have to use common sense and think about why the author is saying things. A good question to ask is “why are they telling me this?”.
Another useful question is: “which statement supports the other statement?”. Here are the two statements that came after the word “but”:
- Retailers use price cuts too much.
- Price cuts hurt profit margins.
If you think about it, the second one supports the first. You shouldn’t cut prices too much because price cuts hurt profit margins. The other way around doesn’t make sense. (The second bullet refers to the general effect of price cuts, no matter how often they are used.)
___________
- This is context provided to show why retailers use price cuts.
- This is also context to show why retailers provide price cuts.
- CORRECT. See the analysis above.
- This is a subsidiary conclusion that supports the conclusion. An individual sale will cut profit margins. So if retailers do too many sales, they will lose profits.
- This answer contradicts the argument! The second sentence said “Retailers use this fact [making consumers feel lucky] to their advantage….”.
More Resources for Identify the Conclusion Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Identify the Conclusion questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers identify the conclusion questions.
Hi Graeme,
I think I struggle with how broadly I should construe the stimulus when the question asks for “the overall conclusion of the argument.” If I remember correctly, based on my practicing for the LSATs, different questions seem to have different breadths for broad the correct conclusion is. Does it come down to comparing the answer choices to each other and varies depending on the question?
You want to look for conclusion indicators. For example, here the questions says “too often”. Moral judgements tend to indicate conclusions. So does the word “but”. So the conclusion is just the part of the argument after “but”, which says “too often”.
There’s no construing, or broad/narrow interpretation. It’s literally just the words in that section: retailers use price cuts too much. You can rephrase them but you need to keep the same meaning.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.