Logical Reasoning

PT143 · S1 · Q21 A new device uses the global

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A new device uses the global positioning system to determine a cow's location and, when a cow strays outside of its pasture, makes noises in the cow's ears to steer it back to its home range.

Given that ...

Putting a GPS chip on all the cattle in a herd is far more expensive than other means of keeping cattle in their pastures (such as fences).

How can it be that ...

Ranchers will purchase the device at its current price.

Evaluate / Goal

In order for ranchers to be motivated to buy this device, the steep price tag has to be worth it to them.

Maybe you spend more money up front, but you save money trying to round up stray cattle later (since the GPS device basically steers the cow back towards home).

Or maybe there's some other additional value ranchers get out of having the GPS chip in their cattle that will incentivize this purchase.

21.

Which one of the following, if true, does the most to support the prediction made by the device's maker?

  1. The price of the device

    No Impact

    We're trying support the idea that ranchers will purchase the device at its current price, so this discussion of the price coming down appreciably is totally irrelevant to our purposes.

    3% picked this

  2. Correct

    As they graze, cattle in

    Why this is right

    This is super sneaky, as a correct answer. We might pass it by on a first pass but have to think through it from a different angle once we're desperate. If cattle in a herd follow the lead of the same few members of the herd, then you don't really need to put a GPS chip into all the cattle in your herd. As long as you know who the lead members of your herd are, you can pay to have the expensive GPS thing put on just those few members. If those leaders don't go astray, then other cows won't (because other cows follow the leaders). And if the leaders do go astray, then the GPS will make noises and steer them back towards home (and all the cows that followed them outside their pasture will also follow those leaders back home). We can say, "True, outfitting the entire herd would be crazy expensive, in a way that ranchers probably wouldn't want to do. But since they only need to buy the GPS for the few leaders of the herd, they will purchase the device at its current price."

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

    68% picked this

  3. The device has been shown

    Very Weak Impact

    This wipes away a reason not to buy the device, but it doesn't give us any way to justify why ranchers would be okay with the heavy price tag of the GPS device. They certainly wouldn't buy it if it caused significant stress to the cattle, so ruling out that idea mildly strengthens the prediction that they will purchase the device. But this answer has nothing to do with helping us deal with the background constraint that "outfitting the whole herd with this GPS device would be way more expensive than other options, like fences". Fences probably don't cause significant stress either, so we wouldn't have any reason for thinking that a rancher would prefer the expensive GPS device over the cheaper fence.

    4% picked this

  4. The device has been shown

    No Impact

    If this device has the same effectiveness as fences when it comes to keeping cattle in their pastures, but it's far more expensive, then why would any cattle rancher buy this device? Why not just buy the cheaper fence?

    5% picked this

  5. The device's maker offers significant

    Cheats the Background Constraint

    This answer seems pretty tempting on a first pass. We were trying to figure out how the ranchers could be okay with the high price, and this answer makes it seem like we could say, "Oh, actually the price isn't that high, since the device maker offers a big discount if you're buying in bulk". Presumably, a rancher who's buying these GPS devices for all the cattle in a herd would be buying in bulk, and thus would qualify for this discount. But ... we were already told that "outfitting all the cattle in a herd with this device is far more expensive than other means, such as fences". So that fact was already factoring in the bulk discount. We can't suddenly act like "outfitting all the cattle isn't expensive, because of the bulk discount". If they had said, "paying full price for each unit for an entire herd would be too expensive", then this answer would be fine.

    19% picked this

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