I. Room air conditioners produced

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct67% picked this

   Reliability is a measure of how long a product functions without

   Why this is right

   This makes room for how Japanese A/C's could be said to have a reliability advantage, even while only having a total lifetime equal to American A/C's. I would say that LSAC made this paradox pretty weak to begin with, since I don't think most of us inherently define "reliability" as "longevity". But that was the tension they were trying to create with these two statements. If you interpreted "more reliable" to mean "longer-lasting", then you would be surprised to hear that both types of A/C last about as long as each other. However, as this answer says, if you define 'reliability' as how frequently it needs repair, then it's easy to reconcile equal product lifetimes with unequal product reliability.

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

   67%
2. B

   No Impact7% picked this

   Production facilities of firms designated as United States manufacturers are not all located in

   It doesn't really matter where these are made. There's still a pile of A/C's that are produced by Japanese manufacturers, and a separate pile produced by American manufacturers. Both facts are about a difference or a similarity between those two piles. The fact that some production facilities of the American A/C's might be in Mexico does not explain why reliability is worse than Japanese but overall lifetime is the same.

   7%
3. C

   No Difference1% picked this

   Damage to room air conditioners during shipping and installation does not occur with great frequency in the United

   Since this statement applies to each group equally, it won't have any impact in how we analyze the difference / sameness paradox.

   1%
4. D

   Unclear Impact1% picked this

   Room air conditioners have been manufactured for a longer time in the United States

   Here, we get a difference, but does "these manufacturers have been doing it longer" helps us explain why their A/C's are less reliable but have equivalent product lifetime?

   1%
5. E

   Reinforces Background24% picked this

   Japanese manufacturers often use more reliable components in their room air conditioners than do

   This gets into why the Japanese A/C's are more reliable, but we don't really need to know why they're more reliable. We need to be able to reconcile "they're more reliable, but they only last as long as American A/C's".

   24%