Logical Reasoning

PT117 · S4 · Q5 Barr: The National Tea Association

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Barr: The National Tea Association cites tea’s recent visibility in advertising and magazine articles as evidence of tea’s increasing popularity.

Conclusion (we can thus conclude)

Tea is no more popular now than it ever was.

Evidence

The Survey Group — a neutral polling company — has tracked tea sales at numerous stores for the last 20 years and has found no change in the amount of tea sold.

Evaluate

We're trying to argue that tea is more popular than before.

The author will say,

We could either try to make an excuse for that survey data (they measured wrong, etc.), or we could try to bring up other data that makes it sound like tea IS more popular.

Maybe the stores that are selling the most tea weren't even open 20 years ago, so they're not involved in this comparison.

Goal

We either want an answer that helps us argue that tea is more popular than before or an answer that makes an excuse for the author's evidence (i.e. if tea is more popular than before, then why is this survey showing no change in the amount of tea sold at these stores?)

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens Barr's argument?

The National Tea Association has
Out of Scope
An announcement of a future survey does not move the needle. Maybe next year, once this survey produces some data, that data might undermine the existing argument, but this answer provides no data to undermine the existing argument.
0% picked this
A survey by an unrelated
No Impact
Being "receptive to the idea of trying new types of tea" is not the same as actually buying more tea. And this answer isn't giving us any sense that people's willingness to try tea is increasing, so it isn't giving us any ammunition for arguing that the popularity of tea is rising.
5% picked this
The Survey Group is funded
No Impact
Barr already calls the Survey Group "a neutral polling company." The logical force of that description is that we aren't worried about bias. This gives more details about the Group, but all the argument really cares about is that it's an unbiased source of data. Those extra details don't help or hurt.
1% picked this
Correct
The stores from which the
Why this is right
This allows us to say that the author's evidence is pretty weak. The stores we're tracking are all in the same small region of the country. Maybe the evidence establishes that tea is no more popular now than 20 years ago in that small region of the country, but it's very possible that in other regions of the country tea is selling much better than before. This weakens by making the author's existing evidence seem less complete / less compelling. It's very possible that the survey's results are not representative of the country as a whole.
Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
92% picked this
Tea has been the subject
No Impact
An expensive, efficient ad campaign tells us about how much the Tea Association is trying to make tea popular but not whether the campaign has actually make tea popular. Barr would be able to just respond with his evidence: "Sure, they've been trying to make tea more popular, but as the survey shows, sales are flat."
2% picked this

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