Did this as a practice before watching the video and fell for A. I didn’t rule out E but I did downgrade it intuitively because I thought that the “almost never” wording was too absolute and there to trick us. However, I failed to keep close to the strict formal logic. I did easily rule out the other answer choices because of how much they strayed from the topic.

A’s chain comes out to: Obvious flattery —> boss expecting to be flattered —> no promotion

While E’s chain comes out to: obvious flattery —> supervisors not influenced by it —> no promotion

In my mind, A could still make sense, BUT, it would need an extra assumption that we simply don’t have. Why could it make sense? Because I thought that the boss expecting to be flattered nullified the effect of the flattery and so led to no promotion due to the flattery. HOWEVER, this only works if you assume the boss didn’t fall under the sway of the flattery. E doesn’t make this assumption, it just straight up gives it to us with “Supervisors are almost never influenced by flattery…” which creates much tighter and stronger formal logic in the chain. No need for an assumption because it’s given as fact in the same premise (E). 

Moral of this for me was to not immediately blind myself to an answer choice because of its absolutist language (“almost never”) and to also stay cognizant of the assumptions needed to make an answer choice work.

I originally ruled out B too quickly because I thought that since the stimulus doesn’t mention “existing marketing campaigns,” that D would be irrelevant. However, we are treating the answer choices as though they are correct, and then assessing how well they weaken the argument that a marketing campaign could save the newest product. As for B, which I initially fell for, I now realize that it doesn’t actually address whether the new marketing campaign could save the newest product. Also, pay attention to the wording of “many.” Remember that “many” doesn’t actually mean “most,” and so, this isn’t even a numerically strong support. Lastly, as others pointed out, B is a repeat of “This would not guarantee success”, which is a fact we are already given in the stimulus.