Company president: Whenever you

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct67% picked this

   When the president's company subcontracts manufacturing of a product, it does not allow the subcontractor to further subcontract

   Why this is right

   Since we were told that this company only subcontracts with companies who maintain total control, and since we were told that subcontracting causes you to lose some control, it makes sense that the companies this company subcontracts with aren't allowed to subcontract. To put this another way (and say subcontract five more times to melt our brain), let's say we our subcontracting with company X. We first verify, "you guys maintain complete control over quality right?" The president of X assures us, "Yes we have complete control". If X then decides to subcontract out part of the job they're doing for us, then X loses some control over the quality of the job they're doing for us. That's in violation of our initial agreement! X promised us that they maintained complete control, so we assumed they don't do any further subcontracting.

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

   67%
2. B

   Out of Scope: disappointed4% picked this

   Companies that subcontract the manufacturing of products are often disappointed in the quality

   In order to prove this claim, we'd have to know that "often, when you lose some control over the quality of a product, you end up being disappointed in the quality of that product". We weren't told any such thing, so we can't prove this answer choice.

   4%
3. C

   Too Strong22% picked this

   The company president insists on having as much control as possible over the quality of

   Too Strong: insists on max control Contradicted, if anything This basically goes against what we were told. This president subcontracts out some manufacturing, which we know means that this president's company loses some control over the quality of that product. That's at odds with "insisting on as much control as possible".

   22%
4. D

   Out of Scope: consumers / dubious2% picked this

   When consumers know that a product has been manufactured by a subcontractor, they are generally dubious

   This is a Must Be True question, so we can't really comment on stuff we didn't talk about (unless we have a conditional rule that we can apply to novel situations). We didn't discuss consumers or their perceptions of quality at all, so there's no way to derive this answer from the facts presented.

   2%
5. E

   Out of Scope5% picked this

   When a company manufactures some products in-house and subcontracts the manufacturing of others, the products made in-house will

   Out of Scope: in-house vs. subcontract Too Strong: uniformly better The difference between in-house manufacturing and subcontracted manufacturing, from what we were told, is that the former involves more control over quality than the latter. In order to prove this claim, we'd have to know that "when you maintain more control over the quality of a product, it comes out with uniformly better quality than when you lose some control over the quality of a product". We weren't told any such thing, so we can't prove this answer choice.

   5%