Ninety percent of recent car buyers say safety was an important factor

Question

Ninety percent of recent car buyers say safety was an important factor in their purchase. Yet of these car buyers, only half consulted objective sources of vehicle safety information before making their purchase; the others relied on advertisements and promotional materials. Thus, these other buyers were mistaken in saying that safety was important to them.

The argument's conclusion follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

(A)  Someone who claims that safety was an important factor in a buying decision does not necessarily mean that safety was the most important factor.

(B)  Advertisements and promotional materials sometimes provide incomplete vehicle safety information.

(C)  Recent car buyers do not necessarily tell the truth when asked about the factors that contributed to their vehicle purchases.

(D)  Most consumers are aware that advertisements and promotional materials are not objective sources of vehicle safety information.

(E)  Anyone to whom safety is an important factor in purchasing a car will consult an objective source of vehicle safety information before buying.

Source: LSAT

Abhishek009 · Answer

Clean (E)

2 sources of information are available (A) objective sources & (B) advertisements and promotional materials.

From the highlighted part in the stimulus, the author draws a conclusion that the other buyers' group are mistakenly considering Advertisement & Promotional Material choice as the correct information...

Prethingking leads us to believe that the Promotional/Advertisement information may be exaggerated information, thus correct answer must be (E) Anyone to whom safety is an important factor in purchasing a car will consult an objective source of vehicle safety information before buying.

suelahmed · Answer

I was confused between B and E, Atleast selected E, but why B was not the answer explain pls

GyMrAT · Answer

Ninety percent of recent car buyers say safety was an important factor in their purchase. Yet of these car buyers, only half consulted objective sources of vehicle safety information before making their purchase; the others relied on advertisements and promotional materials. Thus, these other buyers were mistaken in saying that safety was important to them.

The argument's conclusion follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

Question Type: Assumption

Premise 1: Ninety percent of recent car buyers say safety was an important factor in their purchase

Premise 2: only half consulted objective sources of vehicle safety information before making their purchase; the others relied on advertisements and promotional materials

Conclusion: These other buyers were mistaken in saying that safety was important to them

Argument Analysis: The other buyers relied on Ads & promo materials for their information & not on "objective sources of safety information". These other buyers did not consider safety important to them, hence it means that any buyer that consults " objective sources of information" must consider safety as an important factor in buying a vehicle.

IMO B is wrong, because it says "sometimes" & the conclusion uses wording that is very definite. "Sometimes" can mean that there is some Ad & promo material that provides complete safety information & this cannot lead us to the conclusion that the other buyers were mistaken in saying that safety was important to them.

Also if we negate B, it says "It is not true that Ads & promo material sometimes provide incomplete information" which can mean "Ads & promos always provide incomplete safety information" or "Ads & promos always provide complete safety information". Hence B is ambiguous.

E is correct, as per the analysis.

Thanks,
GyM

Leo8 · Answer

Can anyone explain why D is wrong?
How do I negate D and discard option to me. I stared D & E for a long time and then chose D.
As it seemed closer to the conclusion about the other part of the group that relies on promotion & advertisement for security features. If they already know that relying on these things won't help them gauging the security of the Vehicle, so they are intentionally making the choice to ignore safety

redskull1 · Answer

Leo8

I too felt D was mighty close.D is incorrect because of the word MOST.If D would have, insead of most, said "people who relied on advertisements and promotional material" it would've been correct

AdityaHongunti · Answer

redskull1  Even if we reword option D , the choice is still not an assumption ...here's why !

Ninety percent of recent car buyers say safety was an important factor in their purchase. Yet of these car buyers, only half consulted objective sources of vehicle safety information before making their purchase; the others relied on advertisements and promotional materials. Thus, these other buyers were mistaken in saying that safety was important to them.

understand : 
-90% car buyers say safety was imp factor in purchase
- BUT data shows that only half of the 90% made their purchase after having the cars chekced objectively(unbiased) check
-rest of them relied on advertisments and promotions
COonclusion : the rest were MISTAKEN in saying safety was important

Think :
WHy does the author say that rest of them dont thinksafety is important? just becasue 1 group chose objective sources doesnt mean that the other group that relied on is not using objective sources !! sure they are using advertisements and pormos but is that it?? are thye basing their decision ONLY ON the promos??? they may have consulted someone else who according to them is a reliable source. It is not necessary that what author of the argument thinks of as an objective source , is the ONLY criteria for safety !! secondly, author is making HUGE leap here..he first sites that one group uses objective source and one group uses promos and then concludes safety is not important... see the logical gap?? the jump from NO OBJECTIVE sources to NO SAFETY IMPORTANCE. that is what we have to connect.

(D) Most consumers are aware that advertisements and promotional materials are not objective sources of vehicle safety information. 
- lets rephrase as you suggest : people who relied on advertisemnets and promos were aware that promos were not objective sources " .. assumption MUST BE TRUE : so are we given that people who relied on promos relied ONLY on promos??? what if they consulted someone who according to THEM (not necessarily author) is reliable and can give an equivalent report on safety !! here the conclusion will stand if we negate it
"people who relied on promos were NOT aware that promos were not objective " ..but did the ppl rely ONLY ON the promos??? may be ..and if there is a maybe then there is no conclusion.

(E) Anyone to whom safety is an important factor in purchasing a car will consult an objective source of vehicle safety information before buying.
- This is the link i am talking about ..the brigde ... see the author is basing his conclsuion on what he thinks is objective and not a UNIVERSAL STANDARD...so he has to assume this.. negate it : " someone to whom safety is an imp factor will not consult objective sources" so if someone actually cares about safety and according to him objective sources are not a must , then we cannot say the person is mistaken..he is very well right in his position..but as the argument is made by the author we have side with the author.. i know you selected this..

i just wanted you to tell why D would still not be right... Thankyou

IshanVirdhi · Answer

B & D are not required. Here is why:

Negation of B gives us - Advertisements and promotional materials NEVER provide  INCOMPLETE  vehicle safety information.

Even if the information provided in these channels about the safety is complete and comprehensive, it might not be objective. These channels might paint a subjective picture by giving opinions or using other promotional constructs.
We are looking for objective sources.

Negation of D - Most customers are  NOT  aware that advertisements and promotional materials are not objective sources of vehicle safety information.

Even if those who referred to other sources were not aware, it still doesn't mean that they were serious about safety. it might be possible that they were not serious and they didn't know and they didn't care.

If D had been written as follows:  "Those who referred the other sources would NOT switch to objective sources, if they were told that the other sources they referred to are non objective" 
then this would have become a valid assumption.

Negation of E destroys the argument. If one is serious about safety and doesn't refer to objective sources then its game over for the argument. this is the leap the author has taken. NECESSARY CONDITION: refer objective sources (the author takes this to be a necessary condition).
SUFFICIENT CONDITION: serious about safety

ravigupta2912 · Answer

Pre-thinking 
The assumption has to do with promotional material / advt and that fact that referring to them for an aspect would mean not being serious about such aspect.

(A) Someone who claims that safety was an important factor in a buying decision does not necessarily mean that safety was the most important factor.

Incorrect. This actually does not impact the conclusion much. Negating this would give "someone who claims that safety was an imp factor... necessarily means that safety was the most imp factor" Now this negation doesn't destroy the argument since it does not tell us if relying on promotional material / advt is wrong.

(B) Advertisements and promotional materials sometimes provide incomplete vehicle safety information.

Incorrect. Negate this and we get "advt and promotional material never provide incomplete.. info" well this actually strengthens the conclusion now. The correct assumption should when negated destroy the conclusion

(C) Recent car buyers do not necessarily tell the truth when asked about the factors that contributed to their vehicle purchases.

Same as B. Negating this would strengthen the conclusion (remove "do not" while negating and see). Incorrect.

(D) Most consumers are aware that advertisements and promotional materials are not objective sources of vehicle safety information.

Close choice. Negating this would be "most consumers are not aware..information" now the question is can only objective sources give info about safety? Company material can't? Doesn't exactly destroy the conclusion. Incorrect.

(E) Anyone to whom safety is an important factor in purchasing a car will consult an objective source of vehicle safety information before buying.

Correct. Negate this and we get "Anyone to whom safety is an imp factor... will not consult an objective source... before buying" Advt and promotional material clearly aren't objective (they are not 3rd party so to speak). Therefore, this destroys the conclusion in so far as "other people" care about safety which is why they did not refer objective material.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Ninety percent of recent car buyers say safety was an important factor

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