Logical Reasoning

PT107 · S1 · Q9 Jean: Our navigational equipment

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Jean: Our navigational equipment sells for $1,100 and dominates the high end of the market, but more units are sold by our competitors in the $700 to $800 range.

Jean's 1st Claim

Our nav equipment sells for $1100 and dominates the high end of the market. Does Tracy disagree with this?

No, she never disputes the current selling price or the current dominance of the high end market (she actually seems to implicitly agree with this).

Jean's 2nd Claim

More units are sold by our competitors in the $700-800 range. Does Tracy disagree with this?

No, she never disputes that the competitors sell more units at that price.

Jean's 3rd Claim

We should add a low-cost model Does Tracy disagree with this?

Yes, she is warning against adding a low-cost model.

Jean's 4th Claim

Adding a low cost model would allow us to increase our overall sales while still dominating the high end. Does Tracy disagree with this?

Yes, Tracy says that this move could hurt our overall sales, because it would change the company's brand identity (from being a quality brand you pay more for) in a way that would be bad for its competitive position.

Evaluate / Goal

The "I disagree" is targeted at that last sentence. Tracy and Jean seem to disagree on two points:

- should we / shouldn't we add a low-cost model - would / wouldn't adding a low-cost model increase overall sales

9.

Jean's and Tracy's statements most strongly suggest that they disagree over which one of the following propositions?

  1. There is a greater potential

    Out of Scope: Profits

    Nothing in this conversation touches on profit potential. We wouldn't be able to infer that either person believes this answer choice. Jean thinks we can increase overall sales by introducing a low-cost model, but she might be thinking that the bulk of our sales / profits will still be in the high end market.

    9% picked this

  2. The proposed cheaper model, if

    No Support from Either

    It would be hard to infer disagreement from either party, because no one went out on a limb and said, "No one who would have bought the present model would buy this hypothetical cheaper model". Jean certainly wasn't thinking there would be much switching from one product to the other, because she was thinking of the cheaper model as appealing to a different customer. She thought those sales would be additive, because the company would continue to dominate the high end. But we can't say she believes that no one would switch. Furthermore, Tracy isn't directly talking about people switching from one product to the other. She's worried about lowering the prestige of this company's reputation by offering a cheaper model. She's worried that people who currently would have bought this company's present model (because they want to buy from the company that's known for quality) would start to consider buying a competing unit in the $1100 range, since they'd see all high-cost choices more on equal footing than they currently do.

    2% picked this

  3. The company could dominate the

    Out of Scope: Dominate Low-Cost

    We couldn't infer that either person is claiming that the company could dominate the low-cost market. Jean is closer to sounding like that, and she's only saying that by offering a low-cost option, this company could increase its overall sales. But she doesn't need to believe that this company would be #1 in both high-end and low-end. She's just saying, "Let's sell some units in the low-cost market, so that we can add overall sales".

    12% picked this

  4. Correct

    The company would no longer

    Why this is right

    We know that Jean would disagree with this, because she explicitly says that the low-cost model "would allow us to increase our overall sales while continuing to dominate the high end." We can support that Tracy would agree with this, since she's worried that "moving into the low-cost market would put our competitors in the high-cost market on an equal footing with us, which could hurt overall sales". Technically that's not saying that the company would lose dominance (it would lose something but might still be #1), but we can definitely support the idea that Tracy believes selling a low-cost model would threaten our position in the high-cost market.

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

    76% picked this

  5. Decreased sales of the high-cost

    No Support from Either

    Neither person is arguing that decreased sales of the high-cost would cause poor sales in the proposed low-cost model. Jean is optimistic that they'd continue to dominate the high end, so she has no position when it comes to "decreased sales of high-cost causing X". Tracy thinks that introducing a low-cost model would hurt the high-cost market (by putting competitors on equal footing), but she never says that a bad high-cost market would cause poor sales for the low-cost model.

    1% picked this

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