People always seem to associate high prices

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact11% picked this

   Packing and advertising triple the price of

   This doesn't help flatten the difference between average and excellent tea. Let's say that for a given amount of tea, it costs 1 dollar for average tea leaves and 2 dollars for excellent tea leaves. The average stuff costs 50% as much. According to this answer, adding in the packing and advertising costs means that the average box of tea will cost $3 and the excellent one will cost $6. It's still the case that the average stuff costs 50% as much. This answer provides no distinction between the good tea and the average tea. We need to know why good tea can be cheaper than expected or why average tea can be pricier than expected.

   11%
2. B

   Correct66% picked this

   Most people buy low-quality tea, thus keeping its

   Why this is right

   If there is high demand for Lipton's mediocre tea bags, then the retail price for them can be kept high. Suppose that Jade Journeys tea is high-quality, and it's priced high accordingly. But there's Lipton tea next to it on the grocery shelf, priced the same. If people keep reaching for the Lipton instead of the higher quality JJ tea, then Lipton can keep charging the same price as the high-quality tea next to it. In order to like this answer as "an exception" to the general rule, we would want to feel like, "For most products, it isn't the case that most people buy a low-quality version of that product." When it comes to blenders, toasters, ground beef, lawn mowers, etc., it would be unusual for most consumers to buy a low-quality version of that product. I think the test writer who wrote this problem was sort of thinking, "My North American audience doesn't know good tea from average tea" (remember, this is test 27, so Starbucks has barely come on the scene. North Americans are still drinking Folgers coffee and drinking Lipton tea) Because we North Americans don't know any better, we keep buying crappy American tea and so they can keep charging for it as though it's actually good tea.

   Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   66%
3. C

   No Distinction7% picked this

   All types of tea are subject to high

   Just like (A), this offers no distinction between the high quality and lower quality teas. If the tea leaves for high quality tea are more expensive to procure than are the tea leaves for average quality tea (we'll say $2 vs. $1 of tea leaf expenses goes into each box), the import tariffs will add another $1 to each of those costs, so now we're at $3 vs. $2. We need this answer to flatten out the price difference between good and weak tea, and this answer introduces something that applies evenly to both.

   7%
4. D

   Deepens the Paradox8% picked this

   Low-quality teas are generally easier to obtain than high

   This is sort of built into the common sense understanding of the first sentence. We associate higher prices with higher quality because we know that higher quality usually involves expending more resources on obtaining better ingredients. We assume that higher quality teas come from more scarce tea leaves which will be more expensive to procure, which is why we expect these higher quality teas to be priced higher, in order for the company to make back the money they spent to produce it. We need our answer to bring great and mediocre tea closer in price, and this asymmetric comparison reinforces why they should be different in price.

   8%
5. E

   No Impact8% picked this

   The price of tea generally does not vary from region

   This does nothing to tell us why tea is different from other products, in relation to the comparable pricing of great vs. mediocre versions of the product.

   8%