Q26 - Acquiring complete detailed information

[lhermary]

Acquiring information -> difficult and expensive

~Benefit outweigh the cost -> Rational -> ~acquire information

Conclusion
~Acquire information -> Rationally

So I know that the answer will probably have 'Benefit outweigh the cost' in it. The second sentence was difficult for me to dissect and I probably didn't do it right as a result.

E) ~acquire information -> ~Benefit outweigh cost

Can someone help me with the second inference?

Thanks

[bbirdwell]

This is another example of a problem where leaping into conditional logic can be very dangerous. You've mis-ordered the second constraint.

~Benefit outweigh the cost -> Rational -> ~acquire information

The argument does not state "If they are rational, then they don't acquire information."

It seems like you knew that sentence was difficult to symbolize... Sometimes that's a good indication that the question is a "confusing-conditional-logic" trap. So, how might we do this problem without getting tangled up in a net of conditional logic?

When I did this problem, my understanding evolved something like this...

The evidence:
It's rational NOT to acquire the information UNLESS the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs.

The conclusion:
It's rational not to acquire the information.
*[fyi, "abstractly symbolized": premise = ~B-->A; conclusion = A]

Looks like the answer is simply going to rule out the "unless" part (ie it will disallow "~B"). If the "unless" thing never happens, then yeah -- as far as this argument is concerned it'll always be rational not to acquire the info.

So I'm eliminating choices that don't say anything like "The benefits NEVER outweigh the costs." (This is where your conditional logic led you astray -- you were in the ballpark, but looking for a negated form of what you needed)

(A) whoa. Lots of relevant words from the argument, but super confusing, and seems to be off from the start "rational, non-expecting consumers..." Doesn't look like the right answer and will take a long time to figure out. I'll leave it, and move on.

(B) Not even close to "benefits never outweigh costs," so I don't think it's correct. And now I'm wondering if the idea of "bothering to acquire" is distinct from "acquiring." If I don't find an answer i'll go back and check that out.

(C) Sounds pretty good, though the "usually" is a bit weaker than what I want. I'll leave it for now.

(D) Also close. Hmm. "Usually expect" is interesting -- again, usually is weaker than what I want because the conclusion is quite definite (it doesn't say "probably"). Also, is the notion of "expecting" important? Maybe I missed that when I read the argument. I'll leave (D) for now and check out (E).

(E) Ah-ha! This is it! Let me just verify in the original argument: "bother to acquire" is an exact match to the actual language of the argument, as is the notion of "expecting," and (E)'s "DO NOT expect" is exactly the strength I need; it logically performs the function that I originally predicted (it rules out "~B").

Hope that helps!

If you absolutely must diagram it, simply omit the condition you created between "rational" and "acquire." It would simply look like this:

premise = "~B --> A"
NOT expect benefits to outweigh costs --> rational NOT to acquire

conclusion = "A"
rational NOT to bother to acquire

[syousif3]

I got this one right, however, when doing review i"m having a hard time eliminating A and C especially A. Is it wrong because of 'usually' ?

[sumukh09]

I'm having a hard time distinguishing between A and E. I chose A because A had the word "rational" in it and "rational" shows up in the conclusion of the argument. I know this is probably a bad way to choose answers on sufficient assumption questions, ie) if a word shows up in the conclusion then look for that word in one of the answer choices. But I thought A had all the relevant info as well as the word "rational" which is why I picked it over E. Can someone go over why A is wrong? Is reversed logic involved with A?

[ohthatpatrick]

To quickly answer the question two posts back, (C) is wrong for 2 reasons:

1 - "usually" is not strong enough for the conclusion. If the conclusion said that customers who don't bother getting product info are usually/generally/probably/typically behaving rationally, then (C) would be strong enough. Similarly if the conclusion said most consumers, then "usually" would be strong enough.

But the conclusion is universal in nature, so we need it to ALWAYS be true.

2 - (C) is about whether expending the effort to acquire detailed information is ACTUALLY worth it. But the language of the 2nd sentence gives us a rule attaching RATIONAL to whether the consumer EXPECTS acquiring the info to be worth it.

If you look at (D), it's using the language of whether the consumer EXPECTS the detailed info to be worth it. This is a subtle distinction, but when you see such a distinction as you read (C) and then (D), make sure on Suff. Assump. that you go back to the original argument and double-check the actual language used.

====

The most recent question is about whether it makes sense to want the term "Rational"/"Rationally" in our correct answer, since that term is in the conclusion.

Consider this example:
Paul plays basketball. Thus, Paul is tall.

What's the sufficient assumption?

Would you be scanning the answers looking for something about 'Paul'? No. Paul was mentioned twice. What we're missing is a link between the things that were only mentioned once.

The sufficient assumption is "everyone who plays basketball is tall".

You can use this "mentioned twice" trick on most sufficient assumption questions, but you should probably only resort to it if you're having a terrible time understanding the argument otherwise.

If there is a new term/idea in the conclusion of Sufficient Assumption, then that term/idea MUST be in the correct answer.

But here, "rationally" was not a new term. It was used in the 2nd sentence. So we don't need it in our answer choice.

Meanwhile, look at the conclusion again. What term/idea IS new?

"Consumers who do not bother do acquire such information" is a new term.

That term/idea is never used elsewhere in the argument. So THAT term/idea MUST be in our answer choice.

The only answer choice that contains that term/idea is (E).

Check out the similarity between my simple example and this argument:
Prem: Paul plays basketball.
Conc: Paul is tall.
Suff Assump: plays basketball --> is tall

Prem: don't expect benefits outweigh --> rational
Conc: consumers who don't bother are rational
Suff Assump: consumers who don't bother = don't expect benefits outweigh

The problem with (A), in a nutshell, is that it is a rule that proves that rational consumers don't bother to acquire the info.

We're trying to prove the conclusion that consumers who don't bother to acquire are rational.

Those aren't the same thing. Let me know if you have lingering concerns about (A) and I can go deeper into why (A) fails to prove the conclusion.

Hope this helps.

[wgutx08]

(D) Also close. Hmm. "Usually expect" is interesting -- again, usually is weaker than what I want because the conclusion is quite definite (it doesn't say "probably"). Also, is the notion of "expecting" important? Maybe I missed that when I read the argument. I'll leave (D) for now and check out (E).

Even without "usually", D still feels fundamentally wrong to me. Isn't it a reversal? That rational consumers do certain things doesn't mean people who do such things are always being rational?

---maybe some people do expect that the cost of ...will outweigh..., but still do not bother. Not because they are rational, but just because they are lazy (or too busy preparing for LSAT).

[johnscottwilsonsr]

I solved this one an easier way...

I looked at quantities.

Main conclusion... IF->THEN DO->DO NOT

A) Did not fit
B) Not a fit
C) USUALLY
D) USUALLY
E) Fits, no wishy washy usually language

[phoebster21]

I solved this one an easier way...

I looked at quantities.

Main conclusion... IF->THEN DO->DO NOT

A) Did not fit
B) Not a fit
C) USUALLY
D) USUALLY
E) Fits, no wishy washy usually language

But A and B and E don't have the wishy washy language, so you're only able to eliminate 2 out 5 using this method? How did you quickly know A and B were "not a fit?"

I understand the concept of using the force of language to eliminate answer choices, I'm just not sure how well it applied to this specific question?

Can you please elaborate a bit further?

Would greatly appreciate it.

[frank0478]

The way I saw it:

A -> B
______
C -> B

sufficient assumption: C-> A (because C->A->B = C->B) [btw, pretty standard form for SA questions. Just like A->B Thus A->C. Assumption is B->C ]

A = not expect good outweigh bad
B = rational
C = do not bother

Not expect good outweigh bad -> rational
Thus, do not bother -> rational

sufficient assumption: do not bother -> not expect good outweigh bad

put more eloquently:

(E) those who do not bother to acquire whatever do not expect that the good will outweigh the bad.

Took me a while to figure out though. I initially picked C because I didn't understand the stimulus. =/

[bswise2]

Upon my first take, I eliminated the incorrect answer choices very quickly based solely on structure. As discussed above, any indeterminate answer choice (usually, sometimes, probably, typically, etc.) will not suffice because our conclusion and each premise in the argument are universal statements. That being said, getting to the correct answer choice did not require me to read and understand the content of each answer choice.

A- Usually
B- This answer choice talks about irrationality--something the original argument does not talk about. The original argument is talking about rationality (at most, the negation of rationality would be "not rational," which is not logically equivalent to irrational. Logically speaking, "not-rational" could be neutral.)
C- Usually
D- Usually
E- Without even reading and digesting its content, structurally, this is the only answer choice that could give us validity.

[NatalieC941]

Meanwhile, look at the conclusion again. What term/idea IS new?

"Consumers who do not bother do acquire such information" is a new term.

That term/idea is never used elsewhere in the argument. So THAT term/idea MUST be in our answer choice.

The only answer choice that contains that term/idea is (E).

Check out the similarity between my simple example and this argument:
Prem: Paul plays basketball.
Conc: Paul is tall.
Suff Assump: plays basketball --> is tall

Prem: don't expect benefits outweigh --> rational
Conc: consumers who don't bother are rational
Suff Assump: consumers who don't bother = don't expect benefits outweigh

The problem with (A), in a nutshell, is that it is a rule that proves that rational consumers don't bother to acquire the info.

While I understand the introduction of the new term, I am confused about how...
1) The acquiring information part is totally left out of the equation. Why and how can you do this and still derive the correct answer? How would you know to leave this information out of your equation/logic model?
2) I understand most of the analogy above except for the comparision between the two Suff Assump - the first is in "If/Then" form, and the second is just "=".... How do we know when it should be one or the other? Why is it an equal sign? Does this effect the wording structure of the answer choice?

[ohthatpatrick]

I think both of your questions are stemming from just arbitrary formatting decisions I was making to quickly make a visual illustration.

1. Are you asking why I'm just writing "consumers who don't bother" vs. "consumers who don't bother to acquire completely detailed information about a product they might purchase"?

I truncated that just so it would fit in roughly the same visual space as "Paul".

I'm just using a shorthand. It is definitely not acceptable for an answer to only say "consumers who don't bother". Who don't bother doing WHAT?

2. I should have just used arrows. I just used an equal sign to again stress the teaching point I was trying to make to some student, the "don't you see? we need to match this thing with that thing!"

But Suff Assump is always directional in nature, so there's no such thing as the equal sign. It should look like this.

Conc: consumers who don't bother acquiring info ------------------------------------------------------------------------> rational
..........................................................................................................Prem: don't expect benefits outweigh --> rational
Suff A: consumers who don't bother acquiring info ---------------------> don't expect benefits outweigh

[janelleeng]

Hi,

Just wondering, for these sufficient assumption questions, I know that wrong answer choices start with the conclusion which means that we cannot prove the link.

The correct answer choice starts with the conclusion which is why I eliminated it initially, but then realized that all of the other answer choices are obviously wrong and ended up choosing E solely because of this.

Can someone please provide some clarification about the conclusion appearing first in the answer choice?

Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

PART of the conclusion can appear on the left side of the correct answer, but the WHOLE conclusion can't appear on the left side.

i.e.
Golfers are patient.
Patient people like puzzles.
Thus, if you're rich, you like puzzles.

CORRECT ANSWER
If you're rich, you're a golfer.


What we are often warning about is stuff like this:
The TV show is violent. Anything violent is immoral.
Thus, the TV show should be off the air.

INCORRECT ANSWER
If a TV show should be off the air, then it is immoral.

CORRECT ANSWER
If a TV show is immoral, then it should be off the air.


Basically, most Sufficient Assumption questions are testing us on a missing Bridge idea, so we're prephrasing something like,
"If something is immoral, then it should be off the air"
and then we're expecting them to give us negations/reversals as trap answers.

If a there's an important idea/term in the Conclusion that never got defined or mentioned in the Evidence, that idea MUST be in the correct answer.

If an answer choice says, "If [entire conclusion], then ...", it is wrong.

But if an answer choice puts some aspects of the conclusion on the left side, it could still be right. Make sure you 'solve' Sufficient Assumption before you look at the answer choices, so you know exactly what you're looking for, and you then you can just judge whether an answer is what you wanted or some reversal / negation / adulteration.

[abrenza123]

I'm having a really difficult time with the language and argument structure in the stimulus itself - i am really confused about how

Not expecting the benefits to outweigh costs --------> rational

when the stimulus says not expecting benefits to outweigh ----------> rational not to acquire

the premise doesn't say rational point blank, just rational not to acquire - how can you go from rational in the conclusion to rational not to acquire in the second premise to rational in the conclusion? I had a difficult time wrapping myself around the language

[ohthatpatrick]

Howdy.

Have you already memorized your rule for "unless"?
(there are several fine ones out there, but make sure you have one)

The one we usually sell people on is "unless" = "if not",
meaning you put the idea attached to unless on the left ("if"), but it's the negated version of that idea ("not").

X happens unless Y happens = if Y does NOT happen, X happens

Unless Todd comes, Mary will not = if Todd does NOT come, Mary will not

"it is rational not to acquire unless you have this expectation" =
"if you do NOT have this expectation, then it is rational not to acquire"

Does that make sense?

From there, you could spell out the expectation and insert that borrowed language:
"if you do NOT expect benefits to outweigh costs, then it is rational not to acquire such info"

Hope this helps.