Logical Reasoning

PT131 · S2 · Q24 Market analyst: According to my research

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Market analyst: According to my research, 59 percent of consumers anticipate paying off their credit card balances in full before interest charges start to accrue, intending to use the cards only to avoid carrying cash and writing checks.

Setup

Most credit card users don't plan to carry a balance forward on their credit cards. They plan to pay them off each month so that they don't have to pay any interest charges.

Credit card companies try to improve the services their customers are most interested in.

Logical Competition

What would tie those two ideas together? What are credit card customers most interested in? Apparently, they're most interested in paying off cards in full each month, and using them as a replacement for carrying cash and writing checks.

Goal

Look for a safely worded answer that sounds like credit card companies should focus on improving customers' ability to pay off their cards before interest rates kick in, or improving customers' ability to use the cards as a replacement for cash/checks.

24.

Which one of the following most logically completes the market analyst's argument?

  1. most consumers would be indifferent

    Too Strong: "indifferent"

    Beyond this being an unavailable inference, this doesn't do anything to tie together the two sentences.

    2% picked this

  2. Correct

    credit card companies would not

    Why this is right

    This takes a sneaky angle. Instead of asserting what credit card companies should be focusing on (paying off in full, using instead of cash/checks), it says what those companies shouldn't be focusing on. Since most credit card consumers don't intend to ever be paying the interest charges on their credit card accounts, they will not be very interested in knowing what interest rate a given credit card uses.

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

    75% picked this

  3. most consumers would prefer paying

    Out of Scope: "banks"

    We have no ammunition for judging how consumers feel about borrowing money from banks. Also, this answer has nothing to do with tying together the two lead-in sentences. This is just looking back at the first sentence.

    2% picked this

  4. most consumers would ignore the

    Opposite

    Since most credit card consumers are planning to pay off their cards before interest accrues, they definitely would be interested in knowing the length of time they have to pay off the card before interest accrues.

    5% picked this

  5. the most intense competition among

    Too Strong: "most intense competition"

    This is tempting, because credit card customers definitely care about using cards as an alternative to cash/checks, so they would be interested in knowing how many businesses will accept card payment rather than cash/check payment. If this answer said "credit card companies would compete over the number of places ..." it would be a correct answer. It's just an overstretch of language to say this would be the most intense form of competition. Choice (B) has safer language. We know "interest rates" wouldn't be the #1 selling point, more than we know that "number of places accepting the card" would be the #1 selling point.

    16% picked this

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