PT14.S2.Q10 - The government of Penglai, an isolated island

Rosenkranz

Do I correctly understand the argument and why, especially, the correct answer is correct?

PT13 S4 Q9 Admin note: PT14.S2.Q10?

Premise: Government bans outdoor advertising, outside of particular type.
Premise: A Gov Report states that every industry using outdoor advertising, not necessarily of the particular class, had a larger market share than others.
Conclusion: Gov’s actions would reduce the overall volume of business.

(A) WRONG - The merchants seem to be protesting the government’s actions, which suggest that they are worried about loss of business, which is a good reason for NOT restricting the use of outdoor advertising.

(B) Correct. Marketshare (P2) and volume of business (Con) are not the same. Nevertheless, this answer implies that the outdoor advertising increased advertiser’s market share in a manner that wouldn’t necessarily just change where Penglai consumers spend their money on that island. A small mental leap is required to see that if the market traffic isn’t just diverted at current levels then overall volume can be damaged, for which there is no support.

(C) Whether the survey is objective or not, the conclusion that the overall volume of business would be reduced isn’t warranted.

(D) Even if the market share was proportionate to the use of outdoor advertising, that doesn’t mean that the volume of business would change.

(E) We have no idea what the Penglai constitution says.

Admin note: edited title

BlindReviewer

In terms of POE, I think you do a good job with the other choices. For A, I would refrain from going too deep into thinking about what constitutes a "good" reason for either the merchants or the government. Who cares about the reasons and/or whether they're good or bad? All we care about is whether or not the policy reduces the overall volume or business or not. We have to take for granted that the policy exists.

As for B, your explanation is a bit hard to understand but I think you're essentially correct. The most important part is where you distinguish the difference between marketshare and volume of business. The flaw lies in the merchants' assumption that more advertisements -> greater marketshare -> more overall business. But marketshare is a percentage, not an actual number. So while it could be true that advertisements bring in more business, we can't draw this conclusion from the premises because a second possibility exists where the market is actually the exact same size and it's just that if you have more advertisements then you attract a larger share of customers. Under this possibility, if we get rid of advertisements, it might just be that every market gets an equal share of the market and the actual number of customers stays the same, rather than the number of customers going down.

Rosenkranz

Thanks. I appreciate your response.

I think that my explanation was shaky because my conception of the problem was shaky.