"Surprising" Phenomenon
Even though the summer is usually the best for soft-drink sales and Foamy Soda lowered its prices, sales of Foamy Soda dropped during the summer months.
Objective
The right answer will be a hypothesis that does not help to explain why sales of Foamy Soda decreased in the summer, even though the company lowered its prices and the summer months are usually the best for soft-drink sales.
A
The soft-drink industry as a whole experienced depressed sales during the summer months.
This contributes to reconciling the discrepancy because Foamy Soda’s low sales may be a result of an industry-wide decrease in demand. It could be that consumers just did not want as much soda this summer, regardless of the brand.
B
Foamy Soda’s competitors lowered their prices even more drastically during the summer months.
This contributes to reconciling the discrepancy. If Foamy Soda’s competitors lowered their prices more than Foamy Soda did, consumers may have decided to go with the more heavily discounted options.
C
Because of an increase in the price of sweeteners, the production costs of Foamy Soda rose during the summer months.
This does not contribute to reconciling the discrepancy. An increase in production costs does not explain why sales decreased, especially since Foamy Soda lowered its prices.
D
A strike at Foamy Soda’s main plant forced production cutbacks that resulted in many stores not receiving their normal shipments during the summer months.
The stores not receiving their normal shipments, and thus not being able to sell Foamy Soda as they usually do, could explain why sales of the product decreased during the summer months.
E
The weather during the summer months was unseasonably cool, decreasing the demand for soft drinks.
A decrease in demand for soft drinks could explain why Foamy Soda experienced a decrease in sales, even with lower prices.
Summary
The health officials come to the conclusion that watching television negatively influences viewers’ dietary habits. Why? Because on many television programs, characters eat or discuss foods that are extremely low in nutritional value.
Notable Assumptions
The health officials’ claim links together the foods featured on television with an influence over viewers’ dietary habits, which requires assuming that the content of television programs can in fact influence viewers’ behavior in real life. Specifically, it would need to influence viewers to behave more like what they see on television. Otherwise, there’s no connection between seeing low-nutritional-value foods on television and developing worse dietary habits.
A
the eating and drinking habits of people on television programs are designed to mirror the eating and drinking habits of television viewers
This is irrelevant to the question of whether the foods featured on television influence viewers’ dietary habits. As in (C), we don’t care why the foods are featured, just what impact they have.
B
seeing some foods and beverages being consumed on, or hearing them mentioned on, television programs increases the likelihood that viewers will consume similar kinds of foods and beverages
In other words, seeing low-nutritional-value foods on television leads viewers to eat more of those foods, thus worsening their diets. Without this assumption linking television content to poor dietary habits, the argument wouldn’t make sense.
C
the food and beverage industry finances television programs so that the foods and beverages that have recently appeared on the market can be advertised on those programs
Like (A), this focuses on the irrelevant consideration of why certain foods are featured on television. But we don’t need to know why, we only need to know if featuring certain foods can impact viewers’ eating habits.
D
television viewers are only interested in the people on television programs who have the same eating and drinking habits as they do
Whether or not television characters’ dietary habits are interesting to viewers is irrelevant, because it doesn’t get to whether those dietary habits can actually impact viewers’ own dietary habits.
E
the eating and drinking habits of people on television programs provide health officials with accurate predictions about the foods and beverages that will become popular among television viewers
Even if the foods featured on television can help to predict what foods will become popular, that doesn’t tell us that television has a bad influence. To get to that conclusion, we would need to assume that television leads people to eat worse foods, not just different foods.
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that people need not fear that the tourism industry will harm the seaside environment. This is backed up by a long chain of support. First, people in the tourism industry are aware that overdevelopment of the seaside harms the environment. They also know that overdevelopment deters tourists, which harms their industry. Finally, we’re told that people in the tourism industry wouldn’t knowingly harm their own industry.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The author draws a broad conclusion that the tourism industry isn’t a risk to the seaside environment, but the offered support only addresses knowing harm through overdevelopment. The author doesn’t give us any reason to believe that the tourism industry wouldn’t unknowingly harm the environment, or that they wouldn’t harm the environment in a way other than overdevelopment.
A
No support is provided for the claim that excessive development hurts the tourist industry.
The author in fact does support this claim by explaining a mechanism: overdevelopment makes areas less attractive to tourists.
B
That something is not the cause of a problem is used as evidence that it never coexists with that problem.
The author just doesn’t make any claims about whether something coexists with a problem. Specifically, the author doesn’t claim that the tourism industry never coexists with environmental damage.
C
The argument shifts from applying a characteristic to a few members of a group to applying the characteristic to all members of that group.
The entire argument is phrased in general terms, talking about the entire tourism industry and all seaside areas. So, the author never focuses on just a few members of a group.
D
The possibility that the tourist industry would unintentionally harm the environment is ignored.
The author’s support only focuses on the possibility that the tourism industry would knowingly harm the environment to draw a general conclusion that they wouldn’t harm the environment at all. The author just doesn’t address the possibility of unintentional harm.
E
The argument establishes that a certain state of affairs is likely and then treats that as evidence that the state of affairs is inevitable.
The argument never makes a jump from a state of affairs being likely to that state of affairs being inevitable. The entire argument is phrased in general and absolute terms, “likely” doesn’t come into it.