Logical Reasoning

PT122 · S2 · Q8 1990 editorial: Local pay phone

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1990 editorial: Local pay phone calls have cost a quarter apiece ever since the 1970s, when a soft drink from a vending machine cost about the same.

Conclusion (so)

Phone companies should be allowed to raise the price of pay phone calls too.

Evidence

Local pay phone calls have cost a quarter apiece ever since the 1970s. Vending machine soft drinks cost a quarter in the 1970s, but now they cost more than fifty cents.

Evaluate

This is an argument by analogy: - Things A and B have trait X in common. - Thing B has trait Y. - So, Thing A must also have trait Y.

Pay phone calls and vending machine sodas both cost 25 cents in 1970. Vending machine sodas now cost 50 cents. So, pay phone calls should also cost 50 cents.

We attack arguments by analogy by saying,

We try to argue that the two things aren't fair to compare when it comes to thing Y. There's some important difference. For example, a soft drink is a luxury item, but a pay phone (in 1990, before cell phones) can be a necessity! We can't price people out of making pay phone calls, whereas we aren't afraid to price some people out of buying vending machine sodas.

Goal

Look for an answer that completes this sentence

8.

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

  1. A pay phone typically cost

    Unclear Impact

    This answer is about the hardware. The actual wall-mounted payphone or the vending machine itself. This argument was about the goods, the service those machines provide. However, the argument is about setting pricing, which is based on revenue and expense. So maybe we could say that since the machine costs of providing pay phone calls was lower than the machine costs of providing sodas, the price of a pay phone call doesn't need to be as high as that of a soda. But is it still that way? This is about the 70s. We need to know whether it's still cheaper to host pay phone calls than to host vending machine sodas. It's a big stretch to argue, "Because the hardware for phone calls was usually cheaper than the hardware for sodas, back in the 70s, the price of a pay phone call shouldn't be raised here in 1990."

    3% picked this

  2. Due to inflation, the prices

    Strengthens

    If the prices of most goods doubled, then all the more reason to support the author's notion that we should have seen a doubling in the price of a pay phone call by now.

    3% picked this

  3. Government regulation of phone call

    Strengthens, if Anything

    Would it matter if government regulation of phone call prices had become more stringent between the 70s and 90s? One possible objection to this argument could be, "pay phone prices shouldn't be raised because it's a public good; people might need to use these in the case of emergencies, so the government forces phone companies to keep the price artificially low at 25 cents." This answer is ruling out the idea that pay phone calls are intentionally kept low by the government via regulation. It removes a potential obstacle to the author's idea to raise phone call prices, so it very weakly strengthens (like when you affirm a necessary assumption).

    2% picked this

  4. Correct

    Between the 1970s and 1990

    Why this is right

    We were looking for a salient difference between pay phone calls and sodas. "Even though the cost of sodas have gone up, the price of pay phone calls shouldn't go up too, because .... " in the case of soft drinks, the price hike was merited by the rising cost of ingredients for soft drinks. Meanwhile, in the case of pay phone calls, the cost of telephone equipment hasn't gone up that much. The price of soft drinks needed to go up in order to stay profitable, but the price of pay phone calls doesn't need to go up, since the costs of phone equipment have barely increased. This is a pretty sloppy answer since it still implies that the costs of telephone equipment have increased, which would allow someone to say "Well, damn, regardless of what soda is doing, you're entitled to raise your price when your costs go up, Pay Phone Companies!" But in the sense that this is the only answer that creates some friction by making the two things being compared seem disanalogous, it's still our best available answer.

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

    90% picked this

  5. Technological advances made telephone equipment

    Strengthens

    This shows a change between 1970 and 1990 that makes phone equipment seem like higher quality (which can mean a justifiable raising of the price) as well as possibly a rise in costs, since more sophisticated equipment is usually more expensive equipment. The fact that phones might cost more to provide and also offer a better experience both support the idea that their price should no longer match the 1970 price.

    2% picked this

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