Logical reasoning PrepTest 113 · Section 3 · Question 5

Question prompt

Television executives recently announced Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Argument

Valid or Flawed

Flawed

Question Type

Strengthen Questions

Stimulus Summary

TV ads will cost 10+% more this year, but advertisers will keep making money off of these ads, so it’ll be just as easy to sell ad time as before.

Answer Anticipation

The conclusion here is comparative - it will be “no harder” to sell ads this year as last year. When there’s such a comparison in the conclusion, there generally needs to be comparative premises, or individual statements about the things being compared so that the comparison can be drawn.
Here, there are comparative premises. The first one cuts against the conclusion - that advertising prices will go up 10+%. That suggests that they’ll be harder to sell.
The second comparison does bring up a similarity - advertisers will continue to make profits - but it doesn’t speak specifically to the comparison in the conclusion of the difficulty of selling ad time. Why not? This similarity doesn’t compare the profits - if they aren’t higher, then the higher costs might be a tough sell. If the profits will be higher next year, then it might be just as easy to get advertisers to buy ads.
So to strengthen this argument, we need to address this gap in the reasoning - while advertisers might still make a profit, if that profit doesn’t increase to match the costs, they may balk at paying those rates. Anything that suggests profits will go up will thus strengthen this argument.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Most costs of production Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    If costs of production and placing ads both go up, then that’d cut into the profit they’re generating, suggesting that it might be a tough sell, weakening the argument.
  2. B
    The system for rating Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    These “neutral” answers are generally incorrect in Strengthen (and Weaken) questions. Is the new system more or less accurate? Will the audiences generally be bigger or smaller when measured with the new system? Without knowing these things, we can’t say if it’ll have any effect on the ability to sell ads.
  3. C
    Next fall advertising time Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Putting more constraints on what advertisers can purchase would, if anything, make it harder to sell those ad slots.
  4. D
    The amount of television Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    Without knowing the balance between these two types of providers, we don’t know how this affects the argument. Depending on how these two offset each other, this answer could affect the argument differently. That said, it doesn’t tie into the cost increase, so it’s a bit out of scope.
  5. E
    A recent survey has Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem
    More people watching TV means more eyes watching ads, which is directly tied to their effectiveness. If the average increase is 1%/month, then that’s a 12% increase/year, which mirrors the increase in the cost of ads, suggesting that there will be a matching increase in profits (or at least return on the investment), strengthening the argument that advertisers will be willing to pay the increased rates.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 8%
  2. B 1%
  3. C 7%
  4. D 10%
  5. E Credited 74%

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