Logical Reasoning

PT120 · S1 · Q24 Consumer advocate: The manufacturer’s instructions

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Consumer advocate: The manufacturer’s instructions for assembling a product should be written in such a way that most consumers would find it much easier to put the product together if the instructions were available than if they were not.

Principle

The instructions should make it easier to for most people to put together the product than it would have been if they didn't have the instructions.

We could turn this into a conditional:

not much easier for people shouldn't write to assemble product with → instructions this these instructions than way w/o these instructions

Evaluate / Goal

This is a weird question stem. It almost feels like an Apply the Principle task, except it's asking "where would this principle not be applicable".

If we're looking for a situation in which the advice "can't always be followed", then we would want a situation where it's not possible to write instructions that make assembly easier (for most users) than it would be without any instructions.

24.

Which one of the following, if true, would provide the strongest reason for thinking that the principle advanced by the consumer advocate cannot always be followed?

  1. The typical consumer who assembles

    Unknown Comparison Relative vs. Absolute

    This is somewhat tempting, because "using instruction + difficulty" feels like the opposite of what the principle is saying. The principle is saying "using instructions → easier". But since the principle is in relative language, whereas this answer choice is using absolute language, we don't really have a way of judging the situation this answer choice describes. Sure, assembling the product with the instructions is difficult for most consumers (the typical consumer). But is assembly still less difficult than it would be with no instructions? Pretty much every IKEA piece of furniture I've ever assembled was difficult to assemble with instructions but would have been even harder to assemble without. So the principle might still be operative for these types of products.

    13% picked this

  2. Often the store at which

    Unknown Comparison

    We're trying to judge whether it's easier to assemble with instructions or without. If we don't have instructions, we can often pay a fee for the store to assemble it for us and deliver it later. Does that mean that assembly w/ instructions wasn't easier than assembly without? It's too hard to score those against each other. For some people, it might be harder to pay the assembly fee and sort out delivery logistics than it would be to just assemble the product using the instructions. Since we have no clear way to comparatively rank "ease of assembly" for "most consumers", this answer goes nowhere.

    10% picked this

  3. Correct

    For the typical product, most

    Why this is right

    Here we have a situation where we can conclusively say, "it is not much easier to assemble with instructions than without." After all, most consumers can assemble these products very easily without ever looking at the instructions. Thus, there's not enough headroom for improvement to think that instructions could make things much easier. If you were tasked with writing the instructions to a water gun (where all you have to do is snap together the two plastic halves of the gun, fill it with water, and plug the water hole with the little stopper), there's no way you could follow this principle and write the instructions in such a way that it makes it much easier to assemble with instructions. Thus, this principle cannot always be followed.

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

    58% picked this

  4. Usually a consumer who is

    Unknown Comparison

    We're trying to judge whether it's easier to assemble with instructions or without. This answer only tells us how much difficulty consumers are usually having with instructions, but it provides no way for us to gauge whether "no difficulty" counts as much easier than assembling without instructions. And, if anything, it's on the wrong side of the fence. It's putting language in front of us like, "using the instructions is making things not difficult at all!" That sounds more like a situation where someone writing instructions was able to follow the principle and make assembly much easier via the instructions.

    7% picked this

  5. Some consumers refer to the

    Too Weak: some

    While there are other problems with this answer as well, the earliest / easiest reason to bail would be that it's only telling us about some consumers (i.e. "at least one"), so it will definitely not be able to provide us with clarity about whether most consumers would find assembly easier with or without instructions.

    12% picked this

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