gurpreet07 wrote:
Advertisement: Clark brand-name parts are made for cars manufactured in this country. They satisfy all of our government automotive test—the toughest such tests in the world. With foreign-made parts, you never know which might be reliable and which are cheap look-alikes that are poorly constructed and liable to cost you hundreds of dollars in repairs. Therefore, be smart and insist on brand-name parts by Clark for your car.
The argument requires the assumption that
(A) Clark parts are available only in this country
(B) foreign-made parts are not suitable for cars manufactured in this country
(C) no foreign-made parts satisfy our government standards
(D) parts that satisfy our government standards are not as poorly constructed as cheap foreign-made parts
(E) if parts are made for cars manufactured in our country, they are not poorly constructed
Source: LSAT
The conclusion of this argument is that you should insist on Clark parts. Why? Because they satisfy all our government tests (tough tests!) and with foreign-made parts you can't tell if they're good or cheapos that will break.
There's a few gaps in this argument. For one, perhaps I'm convinced we should buy domestic parts that pass these tests, but why Clark? Why not Clark's domestic competitor that passes all the tests AND offers discounts?
Furthermore, how good are these tests? Sure they're the toughest, but are they tough enough? Could you pass these tests and still be a cheap, liable-to-break car part?
(D) "deals" with this second issue - it assures us that the parts that pass are not as bad as the cheapo foreign ones. If you negate (D), it destroys the argument.
(A) is out of scope - we're not interested in whether we can get them but if we should.
(B) is too extreme and is out of scope. We don't need to assume that the foreign parts don't work for domestic cars. We already know those foreign parts are problematic. Also, this argument has never been restricted to parts for domestic cars. Out of scope.
(C) is too extreme. The argument's premise allows for some foreign parts to be high-quality. The issue is that you can't tell if a foreign part is good or not.
(E) is tempting, but we're not interested in any part made in this country; we're concerned with Clark parts! Even if some domestic parts were bad, the Clark ones could still be fine.