Logical Reasoning

PT130 · S3 · Q16 In a study, shoppers who shopped

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In a study, shoppers who shopped in a grocery store without a shopping list and bought only items that were on sale for half price or less spent far more money on a comparable number of items than did shoppers in the same store who used a list and bought no sale items.

Paradox

Shoppers didn’t have a list but only bought stuff that was at least 50% off, YET they spent far more money (on similar number of items) than did shoppers who did have a list and bought all regularly priced items

Evaluation

How are the people only buying stuff 50% off spending more money on their items than the people who are only buying full-price stuff?

Could it be because of the other difference – the sale-buying group didn’t have a shopping list, whereas the full-price buying group did have a list?

Our real world thinking tells us that people with a list tend to stick to their plan and buy fewer items than people who don’t have a list and meander around the store possibly buying too much. But that causal difference-maker wouldn’t work here to explain one group’s bigger bill, because we’re comparing a similar number of items. The items on sale must have been way more expensive to start out with than were the items bought for full-price.

Goal

We need a way to explain how buying x items at 50% off was more expensive than buying x items (not same type of items) at full-price.

16.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain the apparent paradox in the study's results?

  1. Only the shoppers who used

    Irrelevant Distinction

    Irrelevant Distinction: "having / not having a cart" We couldn’t use having a cart / not having a cart to explain why group A spent more on 10 items 50% off than group B spend on 10 items at full price.

    1% picked this

  2. The shoppers who did not

    Irrelevant Comparison: "many / not many items"

    The total number of items is irrelevant, because the paradox we’re trying to explain involves a comparable number of items. This would only work if we thought it was common sense to say “unnecessary items tend to be way more expensive than necessary items”, but that’s too much of a stretch.

    35% picked this

  3. Correct

    Usually, only the most expensive

    Why this is right

    If the sale items were the most expensive items in the store, then we can make sense of how buying 10 of those items at 50% off could still end up being more money than buying 10 regularly priced (but far cheaper) items.

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

    61% picked this

  4. The grocery store in the

    Irrelevant Comparison: "other grocery stores"

    We have no interest in what other grocery stores cover. We just care about differences between what the sale-buyers were buying and what the full-price buyers were buying.

    1% picked this

  5. The grocery store in the

    Irrelevant Distinction: "relatively few"

    It doesn’t matter whether 5% or 25% or 75% of items go on sale. We still need a way to contrast the price of the sale items and the full-price items in order to explain how buying full-price items came out cheaper than buying sale items.

    3% picked this

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