Logical Reasoning

PT111 · S1 · Q25 A company that produces men’s cologne

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A company that produces men’s cologne had been advertising the product in general-circulation magazines for several years.

Given that ...

The men's cologne company switched from advertising in a general-circulation magazine to advertising in a predominantly male-read magazine.

Why is it that ...

They started selling fewer bottles of cologne than they had in any of the three preceding years?

Goal

Let's find something about switching to this sports magazine with primarily male readership that led to selling fewer bottles of cologne, or find something that happened at the same time as the switch that led to selling fewer bottles of cologne.

25.

Which one of the following, if true, best helps to explain why the sale of the company's cologne dropped that year?

  1. Television advertising reaches more people

    No Distinction

    This has nothing to do with the company's before/after. They didn't advertise on TV before, and they don't advertise on TV now, so this answer doesn't offer us any changing condition that could explain why they are now selling fewer bottles of cologne.

    3% picked this

  2. The general-circulation magazines in which

    Unclear Impact

    If the rise in circulation (more readers) happened after the cologne company made the switch, then this answer has no impact on our situation. If the rise in circulation happened while the cologne company was still advertising in this general-circulation magazine, then we might be able to say, "the previous few years they sold more bottles of cologne because the magazines they were advertising in were seeing a spike in readers". But we still have a hard time with that story line. After all, just because the general-circulation magazine has an uptick in readers doesn't mean that they have more readers than the sports magazines do. We can only explain "selling fewer bottles now that we advertise in sports magazines" using this storyline if we know that the sports magazines have fewer readers. However, we have no way to compare the circulation size of the general magazines to that of the sports magazines.

    6% picked this

  3. Most men do not wear

    No Distinction

    This has nothing to do with the company's before/after. Most men didn't wear cologne on a regular basis before, and most men don't regularly wear it now. Since this answer doesn't offer us any changing condition that could explain why they are now selling fewer bottles of cologne, it's useless.

    5% picked this

  4. Correct

    Women often buy cologne as

    Why this is right

    This represents a change from before to after. Before, when they advertised in general-circulation magazines, the ads were seen by more women. And since women often buy men's cologne as gifts for males, these women were seeing the ads and buying that cologne. Now, they advertise in magazines that are primarily read by men. Since females no longer see the ads, females no longer buy the cologne, and thus we have a story for why switching to a mainly-male magazine resulted in fewer bottles of cologne being sold.

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

    86% picked this

  5. Successful advertisements for men’s cologne

    Deepens Paradox, if anything

    While we have no idea whether this company's cologne ads involve any well-known athletes (so this answer has Unclear Impact), this answer drifts in the direction of thinking, "Okay, now they're advertising in a sports magazines, so they're probably more likely to include well-known athletes in the ads, and since doing so is often associated with a successful advertisement, we should be expecting them to be selling more bottles of cologne."

    1% picked this

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