Five years ago, the hair dryer

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct81% picked this

   mistakes a decline in the market share of Wilson Appliance's hair dryer for a decline in the total

   Why this is right

   Any time a Flaw answer is structured like confuses X with Y mistakes X for Y we want to see if X seems to be referring to what the evidence talked about and if Y seems to be referring to what the author concluded/assumed. The evidence was indeed talking about market share. 5 yrs ago, Wilson had 50% of the national hairdryer market. Nowadays, that share has shrunk to 1/4, to 25% of national hairdryers. But that doesn't mean that there has been any decline in total sales, in the number of hairdryers sold. As we showed before, if the number of hairdryers sold nationally changed, then you can't make that "1/2 as big a percent = 1/2 as big net income" inference. Even a modest increase makes the conclusion wrong. 5 yrs. ago Now sold nationally 100 120 % that are Wilson 50% 25% # that are Wilson 50 30 net income $500 $300 ($10 / each) The conclusion said that net income was only half, but here is a possibility where the net income was 3/5 as big (more than 1/2). Since the author goes from establishing that market share got cut in half to concluding that net income got cut in half, he must assume that sales volume got cut in half. This answer is saying that he's conflating what happened to market share with what he assumes also happened to sales volume.

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

   81%
2. B

   Not a Valid Objection1% picked this

   does not provide specific information about the profits hair dryers generate for the companies

   This sort of answer, which asks for specific values / measurements / names / definitions, is never right on Flaw. We aren't ever complaining in the answers that we don't have precise data. We're complaining about the reasoning. It doesn't matter what the specific profit amount (net income amount) is. If I tell you that Company X sold 1/2 as many hamburgers as last year, and that their net income per burger is the same, then we can validly derive that they made 1/2 as much net income from burgers.

   1%
3. C

   Out of Scope: other products6% picked this

   fails to discuss sales figures for Wilson Appliance's products other than

   The conclusion is only about "the product", only about hair dryers. Information about other products has no bearing on how much net income they made specifically from hairdryers.

   6%
4. D

   Not a Valid Objection12% picked this

   overlooks the possibility that the retail price of Wilson Appliance's hair dryer may have increased over

   Would it hurt the argument if we said that the price of Wilson's hair dryer increased? Couldn't we then argue that, "even though they're selling fewer hair dryers, they're still making around the same amount of money because they raised the price on those hair dryers"? No, we can't, because we have a factual premise that net income per hair dryer has stayed the same. If it used to be sold for $20, but it cost $15 to make each one, then the company had $5 of net income on the sale of each hair dryer. If over the past 5 years the price as been raised to $25, but the company still has $5 of net income on the sale of each hair dryer, that means that costs have gone up to $20. There's no way to use more revenue as a way to mess with the author's math, because the author has already established that net income, which balances revenue and costs, is the same.

   12%
5. E

   Not Assumed Too Strong: least profitable0% picked this

   provides no independent evidence that Wilson Appliance's hair dryer is one of the company's

   When an answer starts off like presumes / takes for granted / fails to establish / provides no evidence that, it's trying to name something the argument needed to state but didn't. In other words, it's trying to name a necessary assumption of the argument. Did this argument need to assume that Wilson's hair dryer is one of the company's least profitable products? Not at all. It doesn't make a difference how the profitability of hair dryers compares to that of any other of Wilson's products. All we care about is whether the profitability of hair dryers changed at all since 5 years ago, but there's a premise telling us directly that it did not.

   0%