The production of leather and fur

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: any manufactured good28% picked this

   The price of any manufactured good depends more on how fashionable that good is than on the materials

   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%
2. B

   Out of Scope: practical1% picked this

   It is more important for the materials used in the manufacture of clothing to be fashionable than it is

   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%
3. C

   Too Strong: tend to be3% picked this

   Materials that require relatively little labor in their production tend to

   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%
4. D

   Too Strong: only thing1% picked this

   The appearance of a manufactured good is the only thing that determines whether

   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%
5. E

   Correct67% picked this

   Cultural trends tend to be an important determinant of the prices of materials

   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%