Self-study
Bookstore owner: Conclusion Consumers should buy books only from an independent bookstore, not from a bookstore that belongs to a bookstore chain. ██ ███████████ █████████ █████ ██ █████ █ ████ █████ ███████ ██ █████ ████ ████ █ █████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ██████ █████ ████████ ███ █████████ ██ ███████████ ███████████ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ ██████████
Summary
The bookstore owner concludes that consumers should only buy books from independent bookstores, and not from chain bookstores. Why? Well, indie bookstores often carry a wider variety of books, and chain bookstores threaten indie bookstores’ existence—so, chain bookstores reduce the variety of books offered to consumers.
Notable Assumptions
The bookstore owner’s premises establish that chain bookstores reduce the variety of books offered to consumers, but there’s no link from there to the conclusion that consumers should only buy from indie bookstores. The bookstore owner must be assuming a link.
So, the principle we’re looking for will affirm that assumption: that if buying from chain bookstores will reduce the available variety of books, then consumers should only buy from indie bookstores.
18.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████ ███████ ██████████████
a
Chain bookstores should ███ █████ ███████████ ██████████ ███ ██ ████████ ████ █████ ██ █████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ ██████████
This leads to the wrong conclusion. The argument is about what decisions consumers should make, not about how chain bookstores should conduct business.
b
Consumers should buy █████ ████ ████ █████ ██████████ █████ █████████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ ██████████
According to this principle, if chain bookstores tend to reduce the available variety of books (and indie bookstores don’t do that), then consumers should only buy from indie bookstores. That fills in the bookstore owner’s assumption and bridges the gap in the argument!
c
The best interest ██ ███ ███████████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ █████████ ████████ █████ ████ ██████████ █████ █████████ █████ ██ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ ██████████
The idea of the bookselling business’ best interest doesn’t appear anywhere in the argument, so this can’t fill in the assumption between the bookstore owner’s premises and conclusion.
d
Consumers should not ████ █████████ ████ ███ █████████ ████ ████████████ ██████ █████████ ██████████ ███ ██ █████████
This isn’t triggered by the argument, because we don’t know whether or not chain bookstores deliberately force indie bookstores out of business. That would be our own arbitrary assumption.
e
If consumers have ██ ██████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████████ ████ ██████ ███ █████ ████ ███ █████ █████████ ████ ███ ████████ █████████ ██ ██████
There’s nothing in the argument that mentions consumers not having access to any indie bookstore, so this doesn’t trigger. The argument also never says that consumers should buy from chain bookstores, under any circumstances.