Logical Reasoning

PT103 · S1 · Q15 Grow-Again ointment is a proven

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Grow-Again ointment is a proven treatment for reversing male hereditary baldness.

Conclusion (Consequently)

Offering a manufacturer' rebate on the purchase price of Grow-Again would be unprofitable for the manufacturer.

Intermediate Conclusion (Therefore)

Offering a manufacturer' rebate on the purchase price of Grow-Again will not increase sales.

Evidence

Grow-Again is a proven treatment for reversing baldness. Five drops daily is the recommended dose. Exceeding this quantity does not increase the product's effectiveness.

Evaluate

This is one of those arguments that is so disconnected/bad that it's hard to even understand what logic the author was going for.

Why is the author making a jump from to "offering a rebate will not increase sales"?

Those two ideas don't seem to have anything to do with each other. Let's picture someone going through CVS, considering buying some Grow-Again for $40.

If the package had an offer for a $10 manufacturer's rebate, wouldn't that potentially motivate some people to buy the product, who otherwise would feel like $40 is too much?

Does the author think that the people buying this product are too rich to care about a rebate? Are the people who buy this product people who know themselves to be someone that will not remember to submit the rebate form? Are they turned off by a company incentivizing the purchase via a rebate? (i.e. "If this product really worked, they wouldn't feel the need to offer a rebate)?

How is any of this connected to the fact that five drops daily is the dose, and exceeding this quantity doesn't add effectiveness?

Goal

Let's look for an answer that helps us connect some dots here. More than anything, we want to help convince ourselves that offering the rebate won't increase sales.

15.

Which one of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument?

When using an ointment, people
Unrelated to Goal
This answer doesn't help us make the case that offering a rebate would not lead to more sales. This answer just tells us that if people do buy this product, they go through it faster than they need to.
11% picked this
Grow-Again is more effective on
Too Weak
An answer this weak will probably never be correct on Strengthen, Weaken, Paradox, or Sufficient Assumption. For any product on the market that resembles a drug or a treatment, does it have identical effectiveness for every single user? Of course not. It's common sense that effectiveness will vary at least somewhat. So this answer is telling us something our common sense already understands. And in addition to telling us nothing, it certainly isn't giving us any idea that helps us make the case that offering a rebate won't increase sales.
1% picked this
Correct
The rebate, if offered, would
Why this is right
This sounds like it helps us make the case that "offering the rebate won't increase sales". It just flat out tells us that the rebate will not end up getting people to buy Grow-Again who otherwise would not have bought it. That person in CVS considering buying this for $40 is not swayed in any by the $10 rebate. They are either going to buy Grow-Again or they aren't. The rebate wouldn't be the difference-maker that converted a "no" into a "yes". This answer is weird because it has nothing to do with the evidence, but that happens sometimes on Strengthen and Weaken. It seems like maybe test writers were going for the angle of, "For a product like reversing baldness, men are desperate to buy whatever works. If it's a proven treatment and they can afford it, they're in." A rebate usually doesn't dramatically change the price of a product; it knocks off like 10-20% of the price. So anyone who can afford the discounted version can afford the full price version and would be willing to buy an effective reversal for baldness either way. This is my speculation. We don't need to think of this backstory to pick the answer, because the answer, if true, definitely strengthens the conclusion.
Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
70% picked this
Baldness in men can be
No Impact
The fact that there are other causes of baldness, which wouldn't be treated by Grow-Again, has nothing to do with whether or not offering a rebate would increase sales.
1% picked this
Grow-Again is a product whose
No Impact
This is somewhat tempting. If we were focused on the move from "won't increase sales" to "will be unprofitable", we might have thought, "Wait a sec -- something that fails to increase sales could still be profitable, if it reduced costs!" Is there a way that offering the rebate would reduce costs? Probably not. There's no common sense way that a rebate could reduce costs of production / distribution. This answer feels like it's trying to rule out that sort of thinking. "A rebate on Grow-Again will not cause the manufacturing cost to fall significantly". But there are two problems 1. if costs fall at all, even insignificantly, then the product has gotten more profitable. 2. This has nothing to do with a rebate! :)
16% picked this

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