Logical Reasoning

PT110 · S3 · Q25 Jordan: If a business invests the

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Jordan: If a business invests the money necessary to implement ecologically sound practices, its market share will decrease.

Jordan

If invest in environmentally sound, market share decreases. If not invest in environmentally sound, pollutes environment and wastes resources.

Terry

If consumers demand environmentally sound, no particular business gets especially hurt.

Evaluate

I would imagine a lot of us don't even fully follow the conversation on first read, because Terry's response involves a lot of outside knowledge / common sense.

Jordan is presumably worried that if a company invests in greener practices, they will add to their costs in a way that their less-green or already-green competitors won't.

Because Company X is spending more on environmental upgrades to their business (and their competitors aren't), X will need to raise prices to cover this rise in costs, and thus customers will start buying X's products less and the competitors' products instead, resulting in X's market share shrinking.

Meanwhile, Terry is responding that if consumers collectively stopped buying products that aren't environmentally friendly, they would switch all businesses to invest in environmental upgrades, so all the companies would have an increase in costs / prices, and thus no company would suddenly stick out in the marketplace as more expensive than the others (thus getting especially hurt).

LSAC is really asking us to fill in a lot of blanks there, and the worst part is it doesn't even make a big difference to getting the right answer.

Goal

What is the logical relationship between these two people's statements?

Jordan

If we do X, bad thing happens. If we don't do X, different bad thing happens.

Terry

If we do Y, then doing X won't lead to first bad thing.

X = investing in environmental upgrades Y = consumers demanding environmentally friendly products

25.

In which one of the following exchanges is the logical relationship between Jordan's and Terry's statements most similar to the logical relationship between their statements above?

  1. Correct

    Jordan: Either it will rain

    Why this is right

    This answer is kind of terrible, but we find it as the best available on a 2nd pass. We wouldn't be able to match up everything with what we thought we were looking for, but Jordan definitely presents a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" binary, just like the original Jordan did. If we do X, bad thing happens. if it rains, picnic is thwarted If we don't do X, different bad thing happens. if it doesn't rain, garden won't get watered Terry proposes a solution that takes away the bad thing associated with the preferred course of action. In the original conversation, we'd rather have businesses invest in greener practices than not invest, because we don't want environmental pollution and degradation! So our preferred course of action is that businesses invest in greener practices. We're just trying to figure out how to deal with the problem of the early adopter businesses being "punished" in the marketplace for raising prices to cover the higher costs of their greener practices. And Terry's solution is to have consumers incentivize businesses to go green, which potentially solves this problem. In (A)'s conversation, we'd rather it not rain than rain, because we don't want our picnic to be thwarted! But we are kinda worried about our garden, if it doesn't rain. Terry proposes a solution that allows us to feel better about this preferred outcome. Phew, we have a potential win-win ... it doesn't rain, we get to have our picnic, and we have Terry's solution for how we deal with the garden. In the original, phew, we have a potential win-win ... businesses invest in greener practices, we don't have environmental degradation, and we have Terry's solution for how we deal with the problem of early adopting businesses getting punished by consumers seeking lower prices.

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

    45% picked this

  2. Jordan: Each person can have

    Weak Jordan Match Bad Terry Match

    Jordan's is decent, although the original was "If X happens / If X doesn't happen", as was the correct answer. Jordan's statements here are presenting "You can have X or you can have Y, but you can't have both", but that wording still implies you might have neither. Here's me stretching it to try to make it work ... If we do X, bad thing happens. if we eat veggies / exercise, then not enjoyable life If we don't do X, different bad thing happens. if we don't eat veggies / exercise, then not live long life Terry's objection is saying, "That first connection isn't true. Eating veggies and exercising doesn't guarantee a non-enjoyable / unhappy life. There are people who are health-conscious but still happy." That's not as strong a match as proposing an alternate plan that allows us to circumvent one of the bad outcomes.

    5% picked this

  3. Jordan: If taxes are raised,

    Terry: But if taxes remain

    Bad Relationship Match Weak Jordan Match

    Jordan is not presenting a binary the way the original or correct answer do. Invest the money required implement better practices vs. doesn't implement better practices It rains vs. it doesn't rain Taxes are raised vs. lowered vs. stay the same Terry's answer doesn't have a similar relationship to that of the original because now Terry is just pointing out that Jordan is starting from a false dichotomy. Terry is saying, "We're not limited to those two triggers. There's a third trigger". In the original and the correct answer, there really are only two possible triggers, and Terry's response is just saying, "for one of those triggers, I have a plan that would thwart the outcome from coming true."

    30% picked this

  4. Jordan: If we remodel the

    Terry: But if we don’t

    Bad Jordan Match

    There's no binary conditional to go off of in Jordan's statements. Jordan is saying, "If X, then good thing Y" "But even with X, no guarantee of good thing Z"

    5% picked this

  5. Jordan: If the dam’s spillway

    Terry: There’s no real danger

    Weak Jordan Match Bad Terry Match

    The Jordan part of this matches pretty fine, except its outcomes are just "might" statements, whereas the original was quite certain of its outcomes. If we do X, bad thing happens. if we open spillway, river might flood east side of town If we don't do X, different bad thing happens. if we don't open spillway, dam might burst. Terry's response should either be saying that there's a way when we open the spillway that can keep the east side from being flooded, or saying that there's a way if we don't open the spillway that the dam doesn't burst. Instead, Terry is just saying "that second outcome is super low probability", and adding on a conditional conclusion, "if this other thing happens we should go with the first trigger". It's a mess, none of which matches up.

    15% picked this

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