Self-study
Manager: Support Our company's mail-order sales have recently increased 25 percent. ████ ████████ ███████ ██████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ████████ █████████ ████ █████████ ██████ ████ ████ ████ ████████ ██ ██████ ████ ████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ████████ ██████ ███ █████████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The manager concludes that the policy change caused the increase in mail-order sales. He supports this by noting that mail-order sales increased 25%, starting around the time the company began offering free shipping on all orders, instead of just on orders over $50.
Notable Assumptions
The manager assumes that there are no alternative hypotheses to explain the observed correlation— that is, he assumes there’s no other explanation for the recent increase in mail-order sales, like increased online ordering across companies or increased advertising.
12.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ █████████ █████████
a
Mail-order sales have ████ ██████████ ███ █████████ ████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ████ █████████
This rules out the alternative hypothesis that mail-order sales have also increased across other companies. It also strengthens the causal connection between unlimited free and increased mail-order sales by suggesting that without it, such sales may not increase.
Plausibility
Plausibility
Presenting evidence that corroborates (in Strengthen) or conflicts (in Weaken) with the author's hypothesized explanation or the predictions that follow from that explanation.
b
The company did ███ ██████ █████████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████
This weakens the argument by suggesting that many customers didn’t know about the company’s unlimited free shipping. If they didn’t know about it, it’s unlikely that it influenced their mail-order purchases.
c
The company's profits ████ ██████████ █████ ████ █████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████
Irrelevant. The manager only addresses an increase in mail-order sales, not an increase in profits from mail-order sales. The fact that profits increased doesn’t help to establish that the policy change caused the increase in sales.
d
The company's change ██ ██████ ████████ ████ █████ ███ ███████████ ███████ ████████ █████████ ████ █████████
Irrelevant. Even if other companies have been offering unlimited free shipping much longer, we still need to determine whether unlimited free shipping caused the increase in mail-order sales at the manager’s company.
e
Most companies offer ████ ████████ ████ ██ ██████████ █████████ ████ ████
Irrelevant. Even if most companies don’t offer unlimited free shipping, we still need to determine whether unlimited free shipping caused the increase in mail-order sales at the manager’s company.