Self-study
Support A study found that consumers reaching supermarket checkout lines within 40 minutes after the airing of an advertisement for a given product over the store's audio system were significantly more likely to purchase the product advertised than were consumers who checked out prior to the airing. ███████████ █████ ██████████████ ███ ██████████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that ads aired at supermarkets are effective. He supports this with a study showing that consumers who checked out within 40 minutes of hearing an ad were more likely to buy the product than those who checked out before the ad aired.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that there are no alternative hypotheses that explain the correlation between customers hearing the ad and purchasing the advertised product. He assumes customers weren't already planning to buy the product and that the increase in purchases isn’t just a coincidence. He also assumes that the study reflects the effectiveness of all supermarket ads.
2.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ █████████
a
During the study, ███ ████ ██ ███ ██████████████ ████ ██████ ████ ███████ ███ ████████ █████ █████ ████ ████ █████ ████ ██████ ████ ████ ██████
Irrelevant. The argument addresses whether people were more likely to buy the product, not how many people bought the product. So it doesn’t matter when more people checked out.
b
A large proportion ██ ███ █████████ ███ ██████ █ ███████ ███████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ██ █████████████ ███ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ███ ███ ████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ██ ███ ████ ████████
This rules out the alternative hypothesis that most customers who bought an advertised product were already planning to buy it that day. This makes it more likely that the ad influenced their purchase.
c
Many of the █████████ ████████ ████ ████ █████████ ██████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████ ████████ █████ ████ ████ ███████ ██ ███ ██████
This doesn’t help to establish that the advertisement itself caused people to buy the product. Also, (C) doesn’t say which consumers reported buying an advertised product every time they shop— maybe the consumers in (C) didn’t even hear the ad.
d
Many of the █████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ███ ███ ███████ ███ ████████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ███████████████ ██████ ████████ ████ ████ █████ ███ ████████ ███████ ███ ██████████████
Irrelevant. Whether people remember hearing the ad doesn’t tell us whether they actually heard it. If they didn’t hear it, this would weaken the conclusion that the ad influenced their purchase.
e
Many of the █████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ████████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ███████ ████ █████████████
Irrelevant. The fact that people only buy the product occasionally doesn’t explain whether the ad influenced their purchase on this occasion. They might have already planned to buy it that day.