Logical Reasoning

PT8 · S4 · Q17 Certain items—those with that

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Certain items—those with that hard-to-define quality called exclusivity—have the odd property, when they become available for sale, of selling rapidly even though they are extremely expensive.

Conclusion (therefore)

For "exclusive" items, sellers should err on the side of pricing too high rather than too low.

Evidence

The right price is hard to gauge in advance, so some error is likely.

Setting the price too low is a serious error: it undermines the very exclusivity that makes the item appealing.

Evaluate

The three most common moves on Method are - make/break an Analogy - show Faulty Implications of someone's Logic/Plan - eliminate/suggest an Alternative

This argument seems to blend two of those.

Two strategies (or Plans) are on the table: erring high or erring low.

Erring low has a Faulty Implication (a bad consequence); it leads to people no longer thinking that the product has exclusivity, and thus the product loses its appeal.

The author recommends the Alternative strategy of erring on the high side.

Goal

The question stem is asking specifically about the evidence. How did we arrive at recommending the "err on the high side" pricing strategy?

Find any answer choice that is descriptively true, but it might sound something like eliminates an Alternative plan because of its Faulty Consequence.

17.

The argument recommends a certain pricing strategy on the grounds that

  1. Correct

    this strategy lacks a counterproductive

    Why this is right

    This works! The recommended strategy (price too high) is recommended because the rejected alternative (price too low) has a counterproductive feature: it undermines exclusivity, the item's chief appeal. The "counterproductive feature" is the Faulty Implication of the alternative. Pricing too low could backfire because people wouldn't want it any more if it didn't seem exclusive.

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

    71% picked this

  2. this strategy has all of

    Bad Description

    There aren't any advantages listed to the alternative plan of erring on the side of pricing too low. It identifies one specific bad feature of the rejected alternative (destroying exclusivity) and recommends the other strategy because it lacks that feature.

    7% picked this

  3. experience has proven this strategy

    Bad Description

    The argument never references past experiences. Instead, the author explicitly gives us the reason for this strategy's superiority: it maintains the aura of exclusivity, which is the quality people want.

    4% picked this

  4. this strategy does not rely

    Bad Description

    Out of Scope (buyers' estimates of value) The argument doesn't make any claim about whether the strategy depends on buyers' value estimates. It says the right price is hard to gauge in advance, but doesn't recommend high pricing because it avoids depending on buyer estimates.

    6% picked this

  5. the error associated with this

    Bad Description

    The argument doesn't suggest the high-pricing error goes unnoticed. This answer is saying the author claimed that "people will notice if you price it too low; but they won't notice if you price it too high", but the argument doesn't say anything like that.

    12% picked this

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