Logical Reasoning

PT153 · S3 · Q15 If the glee club pays cash today to rent

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If the glee club pays cash today to rent the equipment it needs for next Saturdayʼs party, its usual rental agency will accept a much lower price than the club would pay for renting the equipment next Saturday.

Conclusion

The glee club's party committee clearly cares little about saving money.

Evidence

They could pay in cash today to rent the equipment they need for next Saturday's party, or they could wait until the day of the party and would have to then pay a much higher price.

They know this, but plan to wait to rent the equipment on the day of the party.

Evaluate

If we wanted to anticipate a LINKING answer, it might sound like, .

But I would suspect this is headed into DEFENDER territory, so let's think about what type of Objections we could make to this argument.

Given that ... they're electing to pay more in order to pay the day of the party, How can we argue ... they care a lot about saving money!

We would basically just have to make an excuse for their behavior. Why are they waiting?

- maybe it's just not feasible for them to rent the equipment now: they have no place to temporarily store it / they don't have the money for it yet in their budget, but will by next Saturday / they can only buy stuff via credit card, not cash.

- maybe they're not 100% sure the event will happen. Perhaps it might get rained out, and they don't want to waste money on prematurely renting equipment for an event that doesn't end up happening.

- maybe they're still shopping around trying to find a better price. It says that this is their usual rental agency, but maybe they think it's worth waiting until next Saturday and paying more in case they can scope out a cheaper way to rent this equipment before then.

Goal

Since the author is answering a Curious Fact (why aren't they renting the equipment now, for much less?) with an Explanation (they care very little about saving money), and since this is Necessary Assumption, the correct answer will probably either:

- rule out some Alternate Explanation for they're waiting until next Saturday to rent it, or

- establish something that would need to be true for the Author's Explanation to be plausible (i.e. they do have enough money and the storage capacity to rent it now)

15.

Which one of the following assumptions is required by the argument above?

  1. At least some influential members

    Too Specific / Weakens

    There's no way we could derive from this paragraph that our author is clearly envisioning this specific scenario about internal disagreements between some influential members and the rest of the committee. Furthermore, if we negated this, it would be saying, "There are not any influential members pushing the committee to rent the equipment today", and that would just strengthen the author's case.

    1% picked this

  2. Most members of the club?s

    Too Strong: most

    The word "most" is wrong on Necessary Assumption 99% of time we see it, because arguments don't usually hinge on whether something is at least 51% or at most 49%. If we negate this, we're just saying, "at most 49% of the party committee is aware of the glee club's financial situation". Does that badly weaken the argument? No. Maybe people would think, "it shows that the decision to wait until next Saturday is a minority decision, so maybe this minority doesn't care about saving money, but the remaining majority does." The problem is that "being aware of the club's financial situation" is not necessary in order to weigh in on whether to rent the equipment today vs. next Saturday. There are plenty of rich people who have a very secure financial situation but still care a lot about saving money. In other words, you wouldn't base your decision about whether to rent today or next Saturday on your financial situation. In any financial situation, cheaper = better, if you care about saving money.

    5% picked this

  3. At least one rental agency

    Out of Scope: other agencies policies

    This is saying that the author has to assume that there is at least one rental agency out there that doesn't offer this "early-bird discount". Why would the author need to assume there's a rental agency that doesn't offer this pre-pay discount? If we negate this answer, it's saying "all rental agencies will accept a lower price today than they will next Saturday". If anything, that negation would strengthen the author's argument. He could say, "Everybody's prices will be higher next Saturday, so the fact that they're waiting shows they don't care about saving money."

    5% picked this

  4. The club?s party committee has

    Weakens

    This actually seems to offer an alternative explanation for why the club is waiting. They would like to save money by renting the equipment today, sure, but they have a number of other responsibilities that take precedence. If we negated this, it would say, "the club has no higher responsibility than saving money", which would only strengthen his position that waiting until next Saturday shows they don't really care about saving money.

    8% picked this

  5. Correct

    There is enough cash available

    Why this is right

    We could say this establishes a minimum plausibility for the author's explanation that the glee club knows about this discount opportunity, has the means to take advantage of this discount opportunity, but is eschewing it anyway. We could also say this rules out an alternate explanation for why the glee club isn't renting the equipment today. If we negated this, it would say that the glee club doesn't have enough cash to rent the equipment today. Would that weaken? Yes, a ton. It would allow us to say, "Yo, author -- the committee cares a lot about saving money. The real reason they're not renting it today, at a cheaper rate, is that they just don't have cash to do so." The paragraph never specified that this early-bird discount needed to be paid in cash, but the sufficient trigger that allows them to get the discount does specify "paying cash today". In order for the author to conclude that the glee club is carelessly passing up the sweet discount offer that she has presented for us, she has to assume that the glee club has the ability to take advantage of that offer in the first place.

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

    81% picked this

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