Painting wood furniture requires less time than does finishing the fun

Question

Painting wood furniture requires less time than does finishing the furniture with a stain and polyurethane. On the other hand, a finish of stain and polyurethane lasts much longer than does paint. Yet one further fact in favor of paint is that it costs significantly less than does stain and polyurethane. Therefore, if reducing work time and saving money are more important to people, they will paint their wood furniture rather than finish it with stain and polyurethane.

The argument in the passage above makes which of the following assumptions?

(A) It is better to paint wood furniture than it is to stain and polyurethane it.

(B) Most people consider reducing work time and saving money to be more important than the longevity of a finish.

(C) Most people prefer to leave wood furniture unfinished rather than to paint or to stain and polyurethane the wood.

(D) Work time, cost, and longevity are equally important factors in deciding whether to paint wood furniture or stain and polyurethane it.

(E) Work time, cost, and longevity are the only important differences between painting wood furniture and finishing it with stain and polyurethane.

gayathri · Answer

Got E by POE

A) It clearly states in the passage that depending which factor is important (work time, cost vs. longevity) one might be better than the other. - NO
B) Same reason as A - Ruled out
C) Out of scope.
D) Level of importance of each factor is not an assumption.
E) The passage clearly talks about only these three factors, so it is assuming that the decision is based ONLY on these 3 factors - YES.

vprabhala · Answer

E is the one.
Ptime < staintime
Plasts< Stainlasts
Pcost<Staincost

only three differences!

qhoc0010 · Answer

Yep OA is (E)
But if we do the "negation" on (E)

 Work time, cost, and longevity are  NOT  the only important differences between painting wood furniture and finishing it with stain and polyurethane.  

So there are more important differences between painting wood furniture and finishing it with stain and polyurethane. So what?

The conclusion only refers to people who want "reducing work time and saving money are more important." If there are more "important differences", does it matter?

FrankMurraay · Answer

In my view it's not a big deal to paint wooden furnitures. There are so many paints available today to paint wooden furnitures, and other wooden stuffs. For best wooden furnishings paints outcomes, the appropriate heat range should be managed in the room.

rjacobsMGMAT · Answer

Easy explanation for (E): What if stain/poly is more beautiful than paint? You may be lazy and cheap and only keep your table for a year, but you'll still choose stain/poly because it looks better. In this scenario, work time, cost, and longevity are NOT the only important differences between painting wood furniture and finishing it with stain and polyurethane - we added a fourth one (aesthetics) and that totally changed our conclusion.

(B) doesn't work because we don't need to assume that most people fall on one side or the other. In fact, it's quite possible that most people care about longevity, but even in that case, the minority who care about work time and cost should still paint their furniture. So our conclusion works, even when (B) is not true.

duriangris · Answer

Thanks for that explanation.

But what about D?
It is only stated that
 
It didn't mention whether longevity was important. So doesn't it imply that, assuming that longevity were important, it would still be less important than cost AND work time?

Edit: oh found it myself I skipped the word "more" in the quoted sentence :D

chamisool · Answer

I saw the conclusion, “if reducing work time and saving money are more important…people will paint rather than finish w/stain and polyurethane (for longevity)”

I tried to negate B by phrasing the answer, “people consider reducing work time and saving money to  not be  more important vs finish (longevity)” so I thought this answer attacks the conclusion.

I was hesitant cause the word “most” is not mentioned anywhere in the passage, but I thought E was too extreme cause of the word “only” so I chose B…

electrodragon · Answer

Thanks for the explanation!

But Isn't it already mentioned in the Conclusion that if time, cost and longevity are more important factors so doesn't that imply that any other factor isn't going to be game-changing?

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Painting wood furniture requires less time than does finishing the fun

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