Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S3 · Q25 Salesperson: If your vacuuming

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Salesperson: If your vacuuming needs are limited to cleaning small areas of uncarpeted floors, an inexpensive handheld vacuum cleaner is likely to be sufficient.

Conclusion

If you only need to clean small areas of uncarpeted floors, a cheap handheld is likely sufficient.

Evidence

Most cheap handhelds are easy to use and will probably satisfy all your needs for wood / tile floors.

Evaluate

The "satisfy all your needs" in the premise matches pretty well with the "likely sufficient" in the conclusion. It seems like the biggest vulnerability of this argument is that the sales pitch is directed at wood / tile floors. Maybe there's some other non-carpeted surface we would want to be vacuuming.

Goal

The answer needs to make us feel better about wood/tile being the main surfaces this vacuum would be used on, making it seem like ease of use is in important factor in buying a vacuum, or ruling out any potential downsides the cheap handheld vacuum might have.

25.

The conclusion of the salesperson's argument is most strongly supported if which one of the following is assumed?

  1. Correct

    The only types of floor

    Why this is right

    The conclusion excluded the possibility that people wanted this for carpet surfaces. It said, "if your needs are limited to non-carpeted floors". So, according to this answer, the only non-carpeted surfaces most consumers would be using this on are wood and tile, and the argument already established that this vacuum is likely to be sufficient on wood / tile.

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

    54% picked this

  2. Inexpensive handheld vacuum cleaners are

    Out of Scope: carpeted floors

    This sales pitch is only being made to people whose needs in a vacuum are "non-carpeted" floors. So an answer telling us what it does on carpeted floors has no bearing or impact on the argument. Conversationally, we might think, "But, isn't it a good thing to have options? Now if I want to use it on carpet I can." But logically it's irrelevant to assessing "whether or not this is a good vacuum choice for people whose needs are limited to non-carpeted surfaces".

    10% picked this

  3. Any handheld vacuum cleaner that

    No Impact

    This answer choice wants people to think we were supposed to be doing something with the internal logic of the adjectives we used to describe this vacuum. This answer just tells us a relationship that "all handhelds good for small stuff tend to be inexpensive". Great, there's a lot of consistency within that class of vacuum. But that doesn't help me assess whether I should buy that type of vacuum.

    18% picked this

  4. If your household cleaning needs

    No Impact

    This answer is just trying to convince us that we should buy a vacuum cleaner. The correct answer needs to help convince us to buy a certain type of vacuum cleaner.

    13% picked this

  5. The more versatile a vacuum

    No Impact

    We actually don't know whether these small handhelds are more / less / similarly versatile to other vacuums. The fact that the author doesn't seem to be suggesting them for carpeted floors might suggest they're of limited versatility. But those huge vacuums that do well on carpet might not be able to do small tile surfaces that well. So there's not even a way to apply this rule, since we don't know which types of vacuums are more or less versatile.

    5% picked this

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