It is mistaken to attribute Zanco's failure; to the publicity about

Question

It is mistaken to attribute Zanco's failure; to the publicity about the supposedly inhuman working conditions~in the foreign factories that furnish Zanco with many of its parts. Zanco's failure has more to do with defects in its products than with any boycott on moral grounds. After all, plenty of other companies are supplied by factories with working conditions just as bad as those in Zanco's suppliers, and the public does not hesitate to buy their products.

The argument in the passage is based on which of the following assumptions?

(A) People are unlikely to let moral considerations affect what products they decide to purchase.

(B) People who patronize companies supplied by factories where working conditions are as bad as those of Zanco's suppliers are aware of those conditions.

(C) The working conditions in the factories that supply Zanco with parts are not as bad as has been claimed.

(D) Zanco's sales did not dip sharply after the poor working conditions in its suppliers' factories became known.

(E) The poor quality of Zanco's products is not a result of the working conditions in the foreign factories where its parts are manufactured.

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Paras96 · Answer

The argument in the passage is based on the assumption:

(B) People who patronize companies supplied by factories where working conditions are as bad as those of Zanco's suppliers are aware of those conditions.

Preeti12345 · Answer

WHY NOT A , CAN ANYONE PLEASE EXPLAIN

JoeKan1234 · Answer

Argument: poor working conditions did not cause Zanco's failure.

If B is true, the argument will be valid. Imagine you take inhumane working conditions into consideration when patronizing a company. You know that company A and company B have the same inhumane working conditions. In this case, you cannot choose which company to patronize. You realize that Company A has some other problems, such as product defects. Which company will you choose to patronize, given that company A is inferior to company B? Therefore, if B is true, moral consideration that doesn't help make decisions is no more likely than other factors, like product defects, to cause Zanco's failure.

A is incorrect because "unlikely" does not mean people will not take moral consideration. It means they may or may not have moral considerations. If people still have moral considerations, it is possible that poor working conditions will cause Zanco's failure.

ChandlerBong · Answer

Hi KarishmaB , I'm confused between options B and E. (E) The poor quality of Zanco's products is not a result of the working conditions in the foreign factories where its parts are manufactured. "Zanco's failure has more to do with defects in its products than with any boycott on moral grounds." Now can we say here that "defects" are actually different from "poor quality" in this context? Also, we're given that it's a mistake to attribute Zanco's failure to the supposedly inhuman working conditions in the foreign factories that furnish Zanco with many of its parts. So can we say that it's not definite that foreign factories DO have inhuman working conditions? Do share your thoughts on this. (B) People who patronize companies supplied by factories where working conditions are as bad as those of Zanco's suppliers are aware of those conditions. Through this option, we can say that if we have two companies X and Y, then people are aware that both companies have the same inhuman working conditions and people still buy their products and do NOT patronize them based on the inhuman conditions. So can we conclude that they do not boycott them on moral grounds as they know that one is not superior to other. Is this reasoning on the correct grounds? Thanks in advance!

slk00 · Answer

Hey  ChandlerBong , 
I also marked E because I thought that zancos failure was the main conclusion.

Posted from my mobile device

KarishmaB · Answer

What does the argument tell us?

That there has been publicity about the supposedly inhuman working conditions in Zanco's suppliers foreign factories.
That there are defects in its products.
Many companies are supplied by factories with working conditions just as bad as those in Zanco's suppliers, and the public does not hesitate to buy their products.

Conclusion: Zanco's failure should be attributed to the bad quality of their product, not the moral concern about working conditions.

Because public freely buys products of other companies with similar moral concern, the author is assuming that the moral issue cannot be blamed for Zanco's failure. But here is the thing - Does the public know about these other companies? About the working conditions in their suppliers' factories? We know that there has been bad publicity about Zanco's suppliers so the public knows. But does the public know about other companies?

To say that this moral issue is not at play here, the author needs to assume that the public knows about all companies who are supplied by suppliers with such working conditions in their factories. Only then can the author say that public still buys their products and hence doesn't care about the moral issue.

(B) People who patronize companies supplied by factories where working conditions are as bad as those of Zanco's suppliers are aware of those conditions.
 
Exactly what we said. We are assuming that people are aware of those conditions and still buy their products.

(E) The poor quality of Zanco's products is not a result of the working conditions in the foreign factories where its parts are manufactured.
 
We don't need to assume this. The poor quality (which is the same defects in their products) may or may be a result of bad working conditions. The argument doesn't talk about the reason for the poor quality. It talks about the reason for Zanco's failure - whether it is product quality or the moral issue.

If we negate it and say that the poor quality is a result of the bad working conditions, still people could be avoiding Zanco because of the quality issue, not because they found out about the working conditions. Hence negating it doesn't ruin our conclusion.

Answer (B)

Bunuel · Answer

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

The assertion that Zanco's failure is not due to publicity about poor working conditions in its suppliers' factories only makes sense if those who buy the products of those other companies are aware of the bad working conditions in their suppliers' factories. After all, if people bought products from the other companies without knowing that they too were supplied by sweatshop-style factories, the comparison would be moot and the logic of the argument would go down the drain. The scope shift centers around the word "publicity."

The conclusion that Zanco's failure was not due to publicity about bad working conditions is backed up by evidence concerning companies with bad working conditions that says nothing about publicity. Publicity is a key feature of the conclusion, but drops off the map in the evidence, and therein lies the scope shift and the necessity of  (B), the correct answer.

(A) Even if people are likely to base purchasing decisions on moral considerations, it doesn't weaken the conclusion that people didn't do this in the case of Zanco.

(C) The point isn't that the working conditions of Zanco's suppliers have been unfairly exaggerated, but that these conditions are not a factor in the company's failure. It wouldn't affect the argument if, contrary to (C), working conditions are just as bad as the negative publicity claims.

(D) Even if Zanco's sales did dip sharply after people found out about the poor working conditions, we couldn't conclude that the dip resulted from the public's refusal to buy Zanco's products on moral grounds—the sales dip could have easily resulted from something else and merely coincided with the public's learning of the factory conditions.

(E) It doesn't matter whether or not there's a connection between the poor quality of the products and the lousy working conditions—the existence or lack of such a connection doesn't affect the logic of the argument.

VerbalBot · Answer

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It is mistaken to attribute Zanco's failure; to the publicity about

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