Logical Reasoning

PT146 · S1 · Q15 The production of leather and fur

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The production of leather and fur for clothing is labor intensive, which means that these materials have tended to be expensive.

Situation

Producing leather and fur is labor intensive, so these materials will tend to be rather expensive.

Pivot (But) As fashion has moved away from these materials, their prices have dropped.

Meanwhile, as other products (less labor-intensive to produce) have become more fashionable, the price of these materials has risen.

Evaluate

When we're doing one of these Proposition / Generalization type question stems, the correct answer is usually a safely worded takeaway that reinforces the Causal Difference-Maker.

We have causal language in the first sentence: which means that

So we know that "how labor intensive something is" can affect its price.

But the covariation we have in the final sentence also suggests a Causal Difference-Maker: as leather/fur got less fashionable, the price dropped. as other materials got more fashionable, their price rose.

Goal

We probably are going to hear something like (aloofly referring to fashion status as another causal factor).

Trap answers on this type of question are often Too Strong, so look out for stuff like .

15.

The situation described above conforms most closely to which one of the following generalizations?

  1. The price of any manufactured

    Too Strong: any manufactured good

    All we know is that "how fashionable" plays some causal role in the price of materials such as leather and fur. We don't know if "how fashionable" plays a role in the price of any manufactured good. And even for textiles, we couldn't say that "how fashionable" is the #1 factor affecting price, just that it is a factor.

    28% picked this

  2. It is more important for

    Out of Scope: practical

    This paragraph never touches the subject of practicality. We have no way of knowing which is more practical: leather / fur vs. these other materials

    1% picked this

  3. Materials that require relatively little

    Too Strong: tend to be

    Can we really justify that more than 50% of materials that require relatively little labor are fashionable? That's what we need to ask ourselves, when we're signing-off on wording like most / usually / typically / generally / tends to. First of all, we never get quantitatively specific like this. When we ultimately see the correct answer also has the "tend to" deficiency, we might return to this answer looking for more reasons why this one is worse than the correct answer. We're given evidence that something that is at one time fashionable (leather / fur) might not be later, so we don't really have support for saying that anything tends to be fashionable, since "being fashionable" isn't a permanent trait. Also, we know that leather / fur (which does require a lot of labor in their production) was previously fashionable, so we have some negative support for this generalization that cancels out our positive support.

    3% picked this

  4. The appearance of a manufactured

    Too Strong: only thing

    We have no idea what determines whether something is fashionable. They told us that X became less fashionable and Y became more fashionable, but they didn't suggest reasons why. We certainly can't support an extreme claim like "appearance = only thing!" when it come to being fashionable.

    1% picked this

  5. Correct

    Cultural trends tend to be

    Why this is right

    This is definitely something we pick while reassuring ourselves, "Remember, it doesn't have to be perfect; just best available." This does what we expected --- it reinforces the fact that "being / not being fashionable" has a causal impact on price. Where it sucks is that it speaks more broadly of cultural trends (fashion is one example of that), and it says tend to. "tend to" was too strong in (C) and it's also too strong here, but (C) had some negative support. This is better than (A) because we only know that fashion is a factor, not that it is more important than the materials being made. (D) had counterevidence because we know that how fashionable something is also affects price (it can't just be appearance). (B) brought up practical which has zero support. So the way we come home to a dud like this is thinking (A) too broad a category / too strong a statement of causal impact (B) totally unmentioned concept (C) too strong + counterevidence (D) too strong + counterevidence (E) no counterevidence / no totally out of scope concepts / safer strength of language when it comes to stating causal impact But, yeah, tough correct answer to go along with. We have to remind ourselves that we have some support for this (and no counter-support for this) in order to ultimately decide that this is the answer we have the most support for, given the available options.

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

    67% picked this

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