When, on a particular shopping trip, a consumer purchases an item whic

Question

When, on a particular shopping trip, a consumer purchases an item which he previously had no intention of purchasing, this sale is called an "impulse purchase." The objects of impulse purchases are occasionally essential items (i.e. items that satisfy basic subsistence needs), but much more frequently are luxury or non-essential items. Researchers have determined that, at the end of a shopping trip, a consumer is much more excited if she has bought a luxury item on an impulse purchase, than if she had made no impulse purchases.

If the information above is true, and if the researchers’ investigation was properly conducted, then which of the following must also be true?

A) The impulse purchase of luxury or non-essential item is more exciting than the impulse purchase of an essential need.
B) A consumer who, for whatever reason, is not able to purchase an item she had planned to buy is necessarily disappointed.
C) Consumers seeking a high level of excitement often make impulse purchases.
D) The researcher had a reliable way to determine whether the consumer had planned to buy the luxury or non-essential item he purchased on that trip.
E) The probability that a consumer makes an impulse purchase of an item decreases as the price of the item increases.

gloomybison · Answer

A) The impulse purchase of luxury or non-essential item is more exciting than the impulse purchase of an essential need.
Although we know that during an impulse purchase customers are more likely to but non-essential or luxury items than essential items, we don't whether buying a luxury item is more exciting than purchasing an essential item

B) A consumer who, for whatever reason, is not able to purchase an item she had planned to buy is necessarily disappointed.
Though we may be tempted to think so, we are not given any info whether consumers will be upset should they fail to buy what they wanted to buy

C) Consumers seeking a high level of excitement often make impulse purchases.
We are not told that if consumers are deliberately making impulse purchases to excite themselves

D) The researcher had a reliable way to determine whether the consumer had planned to buy the luxury or non-essential item he purchased on that trip.
 Correct  if researchers weren't able to determine whether consumers planned to buy luxury items than our argument would fall. Because the purchases they made would no longer be "impulse purchases"

E) The probability that a consumer makes an impulse purchase of an item decreases as the price of the item increases.
It is in fact the contrary; we know that high priced luxury items are more bought than essential items

kungfury42 · Answer

I did this question by eliminating 4 options that were outright wrong and then considering if the option that was left made sense in the given context. Since it did, I didn't spend a lot of time in proving it to be right since I knew that the other 4 options were absolutely and clearly wrong.

(A) Invalid. We have only been given that the impulse purchase of a luxury item on an gives significantly more excitement than no impulse purchase at all. We have no data to compare the excitement levels on the impulse purchase of essential vs. luxury items.

(B) Invalid. We have no data to conclude what happens to a customer if he/she is not able to buy a pre-planned item.

(C) Tempting but invalid. We have no data in the stem to conclude how often/frequently is the impulse purchase activity done or if excitement is a cause of the above or an outcome.

(D) The only not-clearly-wrong answer choice. D must be our answer. Also since we have been given that the researchers’ investigation was properly conducted, we have no reason to believe that the researchers did not have a reliable way to determine whether the consumer had planned to buy the luxury or non-essential item he purchased on that trip.

(E) Invalid. We again have no data to show any correlation between probability of an impulse purchase and the cost of the item.

theirrationalmind · Answer

Hi this question is worded as an ‘Inference’ question but it’s basically an ‘Assumption’ question right?

Posted from my mobile device

DmitryFarber · Answer

theirrationalmind 
I see where you're coming from. Some Inference questions do end up working like Assumption questions. If I say "X happened, so Y will happen," AND we know that all of this is correct, then we also know that the underlying assumption ("If X happens, Y will also happen") must be true, as well.

However, in this case, there isn't really a premise-conclusion setup. The author tells us what impulse purchases are and then tells us a finding about these purchases. However, there is no premise supporting this finding--we're simply told it's true. So this doesn't operate like an Assumption question. We simply know that anything that was needed for this to occur must actually have happened. For instance, imagine I told you that I saw a pelican today. You could then infer that my eyesight was functioning for at least part of the day today. This isn't an assumption in the normal sense, since I didn't present a premise and a conclusion. This is just a normal inference--something we can know to be true based on the facts presented.

theirrationalmind · Answer

Thanks for clarifying Dmitry!

Now that you mention it, you actually made me realise an interesting phenomenon.

I can see what you mean but this means that there’s a very thin line between (some bit of overlap also) an “inference” and “assumption”

Because an “inference” is something that is not explicitly stated and “assumption” is an unstated premise.

But from a GMAT point of view, is it safe to say that “Inference” questions don’t necessarily have a conclusion in the question stem?

Posted from my mobile device

DmitryFarber · Answer

theirrationalmind

Let me push back there. It's very important for your GMAT success that you see a VERY THICK line between Inference and Assumption. They are very different things and are usually presented in very distinct ways. Confusing them is extremely common, but it is bad for your score!

So first, inferences. A common misconception is that they must be unstated. This isn't quite correct. True, a GMAT Inference question isn't going to just ask you for something that was said directly, but that's not essential to the meaning of an inference. An inference is simply anything that we are able to KNOW from the information given. So if I tell you that I was born in California in the 20th century, you can make these inferences (and many more):
*I was born.
*I was born in the United States.
*I am older than 20.
*I have lived during more than one century.
*I have been in California.

So why mix in assumptions at all? Because if an inference question DOES have a premise-conclusion structure, we can then infer any assumptions the author has made. This is a rare occurrence. You probably won't see this on your test, and you don't want to let it influence you toward seeing inferences and assumptions as similar. The easiest way to tell an inference question is still to look at the question stem. If they're asking for something that is SUPPORTED BY the statements, or something that the author SUGGESTS, that's an inference.

The important relationship between assumptions and inferences is this. In every Assumption-based argument, the author is trying (and failing) to infer the conclusion. There's at least one missing assumption without which the conclusion cannot logically be inferred. So our job is to notice those missing assumptions and find one in the answer choices, or (in the case of strengthen, weaken, evaluate) to find an answer that addresses one of these assumptions. In every Inference question, the ANSWERS will be potential conclusions, but all the wrong answers will rely on additional (missing) assumptions, while the right answer will be correct without any assumptions (other than basic common-sense knowledge, like "fire is hot" and "birds are animals").

I hope that helps!

Bunuel · Answer

Magoosh Official Explanation:

The credited answer is choice (D).  If the researcher concluded anything about how an impulse purchase made someone feel, then the researcher had to know that it was an impulse purchase, that is, that the purchase was not planned. If the researcher had no way to determine whether a purchase was planned or unplanned, then the researcher would have no way of determining which purchases were impulse purchases.

We know the consumer find the impulse purchase of a luxury item more exciting than the planned purchases. We don't necessarily know how exciting the impulse purchase of an essential need is --- maybe it's less exciting than the impulse purchase of a luxury item, or maybe it's just as exciting. We cannot determine this from information in the prompt, so choice (A) is incorrect.

We only know about the excitement brought about by an impulse purchase of a luxury item, but we have no information about what happens if a purchase is planned but not made. Choice (B) inappropriate extends the pattern into situations the prompt doesn't cover at all. Choice (B) is incorrect.

We know that the impulse purchase of a luxury item is exciting, but we don't know whether this is sufficient inducement for a person seeking excitement to make this kind of purchase frequently. The expense, for example, might be a mitigating factor. We can conclude nothing for certain about this, so choice (C) is incorrect.

This is a tempting one --- we certainly might suspect that the luxury items of higher price would be bought as impulse purchases less frequently. We might suspect this, but notice that the prompt says nothing about high price vs. low price items. This answer choice invites us to bring in irrelevant outside knowledge. Choice (E) is incorrect.

VerbalBot · Answer

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