Self-paced
Consumer advocate: Support Businesses are typically motivated primarily by the desire to make as great a profit as possible, and advertising helps businesses to achieve this goal. ███ ██ ██ █████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ████ ███ █████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ███████████ ██ █████ ███████████████ ██ ███████ ████ █████████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ███████████████
Summarize Argument
Consumers should be critical of what advertisements say. This is because advertising helps businesses fulfill their profit-generating goals, and these goals do not require presenting accurate information.
Notable Assumptions
The advocate assumes that just because the goal of generating profit does not motivate businesses to present accurate information in their ads, there is no other factor that does.
1.
Each of the following, if █████ █████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ██████████ ████████ ███████
a
Businesses know that ████ ███ ███████ ████████ █████ ███████ ██ █████ ██████████ ███████████ ██ █████ ███████████████
This strengthens the argument. It reinforces the premises by noting that businesses are aware that deception in advertisements can lead to larger profits, and we already know that businesses are motivated primarily to maximize profit.
b
Businesses have often ████████ ██████████ ███████████ ██ █████ ███████████████
This strengthens the argument. It reinforces the conclusion that consumers should be skeptical of advertisements’ claims, as businesses have been shown to present false information in their ads.
c
Many consumers have █ ███████ ████████ ██████ ████████████
This does not affect the argument. Whether or not consumers are already skeptical of advertisements is not relevant to the advocate’s argument, which is about whether consumers should be skeptical of the claims made in advertisements.
d
Those who create ██████████████ ███ ████ █████████ ████ ███ ████████ ████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███████████████
This strengthens the argument. (D) says that accuracy is not the biggest priority for those developing ads, which suggests that accuracy could be compromised in favor of creativity. This strengthens the conclusion that consumers should be skeptical of the claims made in ads.
e
The laws regulating █████ ██ ███████████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████ ██████ █████ ██ ██████████ ████████████
This strengthens the argument. It suggests that current laws are insufficient to protect consumers from inaccurate claims in advertising. Thus, consumers should be skeptical of advertisements’ claims.