I see a few questions on this one, so I thought I would share my thoughts in hopes of assisting the community. With CR questions, I prefer to read the question stem first so that I know what to look for in the passage.
shridhar786 wrote:
Each of the following is an assumption required by the skeptical consumer's argument EXCEPT:
Okay, so this is a sort of reverse-assumption question. We need to find what is
not a necessary assumption for the argument to hold. This should be a fun question, then, knowing we are going to presented with four
correct assumptions for once.
shridhar786 wrote:
With continuous advertising through email, infomercials, and mainstream media outlets, the hairgrowth solution Retraligon has been touted as a cure for male pattern baldness. By stimulating the roots of barren hair follicles, the mixture of Aliphatic Fatty Acids in a proprietary formula is claimed to spark hair regrowth in over 90% of consumers. A skeptical potential consumer argues, "No man wishes to become bald. If Retraligon were truly a cure for male pattern baldness, then every balding man would be using it and the number of balding men in the world would drop noticeably. Clearly, it is ineffective."
I do not like to spend a lot of time on pre-thinking. Rather, I find it useful to know how the sentences work to advance the argument.
Sentence 1 - We are introduced to a hairgrowth product, Retraligon, and told that it has received
continuous advertising.
Sentence 2 - This is more or less the pitch. I feel as if I am watching a Retraligon infomercial. In all seriousness, we get a glimpse into how the product works, as well as its claimed efficacy rate.
Sentence 3 - Our
skeptical potential consumer enters the picture, nay-saying. The rest of the lines are contained within the quote. So what can we attack?
shridhar786 wrote:
(A) Retraligon's marketing has been pervasive enough to reach nearly every balding man.
Analysis: Presumably, for
every balding man to be using Retraligon to treat his baldness, he would have had to have heard about the product. There is no mention of word-of-mouth advertising in the passage, leaving us to speculate that the
continuous advertising of sentence 1 is the same as
marketing in this answer choice. This is a reasonable assumption for the argument to hold, and for that reason, it
cannot be the answer we seek.
Red light.shridhar786 wrote:
(B) Hair growth attributed to Retraligon is sustained even after use of the solution ends,
Analysis: The answer starts off well enough, with sustainable hair growth, since
a cure would have to be more than temporary, but then
even after... triggers a baseless conclusion. Nowhere does the passage state that Retraligon is a one-time-application cure-all. (In fact, I would imagine that if Retraligon had concocted such a product, the company would suppress it, dilute the solution, and market a product that worked only with continued use, but now I am speculating.) The duration of use is simply not mentioned in either the background information or the quotation, so we do
not have to assume the truth of the entire statement for the argument to hold. Remember, any weak link breaks the chain.
Green light.shridhar786 wrote:
(C) There are not a significant number of people who exhibit allergic reactions to Aliphatic Fatty Acids.
Analysis: Again, the argument is based on
every balding man being able to use the product, so if there were
a significant number of people who exhibit allergic reactions to one of the key ingredients in Retraligon (from sentence 2), then we can conclude that a significant number of people would
not be using the product to treat their baldness, and the argument would fall apart. Thus, this
is a necessary assumption and is not our answer.
Red light.shridhar786 wrote:
(D) There is more than enough Retraligon available to meet demand.
Analysis: Think about
every balding man wanting to get his hands on a certain product. For this to happen, there would have to be enough of that product to go around, end of story.
Red light.shridhar786 wrote:
(E) The cost of treatment with Retraligon is not prohibitively expensive.
Analysis: This was one of the first assumptions my mind conjured up as a reasonable one to make, perhaps influenced by other assumption questions in which the goal was to find the one true assumption. If
every balding man cannot afford the treatment, then guess what? Every balding man will not be able to use said treatment, and the argument once again falls through.
Red light.In short,
make sure every word counts in CR answer choices. If you can find even one or two small things to debate outright, then get rid of those answer choices. All the pieces have to fit logically, not just the ones you choose to focus on.
- Andrew
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