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Hate the LR on these newer tests. I still can't understand how (A) is not a viable answer. If someone can explain why they'd eliminate (A) I'd really appreciate it. TIA

Stimulus never mentioned the competitor's advertising campaign. Only the advice of the competing consultant was mentioned.

^I don't think that's quite right--it's pretty safe to assume "competitor" is referring to "competing consultant."

Rather here's my over-long take: The conclusion was that the advertising campaign was ill-conceived, and the evidence for this is that sales are bad. We're trying to find something that would make the marketing consultant wrong--we want something that tells us the campaign wasn't responsible for the bad sales, or that the campaign was well-conceived even though sales were bad.

(A) tells us that there's a possibility that sales would be even worse without the advertising campaign. So what? Does that mean the campaign wasn't responsible for bad sales? Not really--it just means that sales were slightly less bad. So from -10 to -5, let's say--that's still pretty ill-conceived. It's like saying the battle plan wasn't ill conceived because 50 soldiers died, whereas without the plan 100 soldiers might have died. You still lost the battle because of the bad plan.

(B) tells us that an external factor could have caused the products' poor performance. These answers are usually pretty good for weaken cause/effect questions. In this world, it's possible that the advertising campaign was NOT ill conceived, but a million other things happened that caused sales to tank--maybe the entire executive staff resigned, or there was global financial collapse. Continuing with the battle analogy, maybe we still lost 100 soldiers, but that's because our entire army got food poisoning, or were ambushed. So we lost the battle, but despite the battle plan, not because of it. This undermines the argument that the campaign is responsible for the losses and is therefore something the marketing consultant fails to consider.

(C) isn't necessarily something the argument does

(D) is a bad reversal of the argument

(E) we don't see anywhere that an advertising campaign is either necessary or sufficient for good sales, the argument is instead a bad correlation/causation one.

Hope this helps!

StopLawying wrote:Hate the LR on these newer tests. I still can't understand how (A) is not a viable answer. If someone can explain why they'd eliminate (A) I'd really appreciate it. TIA

Stimulus: Last year I predicted that LRG’s latest advertising campaign would be unpopular with customers and ineffective in promoting new products. But LRG ignored my predictions and took the advice of a competing consultant. This season’s sales figures show that sales are down and LRG’s new products are selling especially poorly. Thus, the advertising campaign was ill conceived.


A says "it takes for granted that LRG’s sales would not have been lower still in the absence of the competitor’s advertising campaign"

A is making a claim that the speaker isn't arguing for. The speaker is claiming that the advertising campaign was ineffective, illustrated by the low sales figures for the season. But we have no idea what he thinks the case would be without that ad campaign. The speaker is certainly criticizing his competitor's ad campaign, but this answer is an inaccurate portrayal.

(B) says it fails to consider that economic factors unrelated to the advertising campaign may have caused LRG’s low sales figures


This is a better answer. The speaker's mistake was in making the connection that lower sales signify a bad ad campaign. It's totally possible that ad campaign was great, better than before, even. Looking at sales alone doesn't tell us much about the effectiveness of the ad campaign, because a ton of other factors (economic downturn, legal changes in the industry, obsolete technology, etc.) could have brought sales down.

forum_user wrote:^I don't think that's quite right--it's pretty safe to assume "competitor" is referring to "competing consultant."

Rather here's my over-long take: The conclusion was that the advertising campaign was ill-conceived, and the evidence for this is that sales are bad. We're trying to find something that would make the marketing consultant wrong--we want something that tells us the campaign wasn't responsible for the bad sales, or that the campaign was well-conceived even though sales were bad.

(A) tells us that there's a possibility that sales would be even worse without the advertising campaign. So what? Does that mean the campaign wasn't responsible for bad sales? Not really--it just means that sales were slightly less bad. So from -10 to -5, let's say--that's still pretty ill-conceived. It's like saying the battle plan wasn't ill conceived because 50 soldiers died, whereas without the plan 100 soldiers might have died. You still lost the battle because of the bad plan.

(B) tells us that an external factor could have caused the products' poor performance. These answers are usually pretty good for weaken cause/effect questions. In this world, it's possible that the advertising campaign was NOT ill conceived, but a million other things happened that caused sales to tank--maybe the entire executive staff resigned, or there was global financial collapse. Continuing with the battle analogy, maybe we still lost 100 soldiers, but that's because our entire army got food poisoning, or were ambushed. So we lost the battle, but despite the battle plan, not because of it. This undermines the argument that the campaign is responsible for the losses and is therefore something the marketing consultant fails to consider.

(C) isn't necessarily something the argument does

(D) is a bad reversal of the argument

(E) we don't see anywhere that an advertising campaign is either necessary or sufficient for good sales, the argument is instead a bad correlation/causation one.

Hope this helps!

Omg, this explanation was crystal clear. Really appreciate it!!

Blueprint Mithun wrote:

StopLawying wrote:Hate the LR on these newer tests. I still can't understand how (A) is not a viable answer. If someone can explain why they'd eliminate (A) I'd really appreciate it. TIA

Stimulus: Last year I predicted that LRG’s latest advertising campaign would be unpopular with customers and ineffective in promoting new products. But LRG ignored my predictions and took the advice of a competing consultant. This season’s sales figures show that sales are down and LRG’s new products are selling especially poorly. Thus, the advertising campaign was ill conceived.


A says "it takes for granted that LRG’s sales would not have been lower still in the absence of the competitor’s advertising campaign"

A is making a claim that the speaker isn't arguing for. The speaker is claiming that the advertising campaign was ineffective, illustrated by the low sales figures for the season. But we have no idea what he thinks the case would be without that ad campaign. The speaker is certainly criticizing his competitor's ad campaign, but this answer is an inaccurate portrayal.

(B) says it fails to consider that economic factors unrelated to the advertising campaign may have caused LRG’s low sales figures


This is a better answer. The speaker's mistake was in making the connection that lower sales signify a bad ad campaign. It's totally possible that ad campaign was great, better than before, even. Looking at sales alone doesn't tell us much about the effectiveness of the ad campaign, because a ton of other factors (economic downturn, legal changes in the industry, obsolete technology, etc.) could have brought sales down.

Also terrific and a bit of a different perspective. Thanks for writing all that out!