PT72.S2.Q25-- direct-mail advertising

Darklord

Hi,

So the correct answer here was B. According to JY, B is right because the argument requires an assumption: that in order for direct mail advertising to not be bad for the environment, it needs to replace those who would normally buy something through car rather than getting new people to buy stuff. However, I didn't see this argument flaw because I didn't know how we could assume that direct mail advertising was bad for the environment at all-- after all, the stimulus only tells us why normal shopping is bad, and doesn't tell us that direct-mail advertising creates paper waste or anything like that. Creating paper waste or any negative effect of direct mail advertising in real life seems to be a scientific fact, and I thought that LSAT doesn't want us to create assumptions regarding scientific facts. As a result, the argument actually looked pretty sound to me, and none of the answer choices looked any good to me.

Can anyone explain to me how we are able to assume that direct-mail advertising is worse than not buying at all when the stimulus never seems to tell us that (thus making B correct)?

Thanks!
Best regards

Admin Note: https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-72-section-2-question-25/

jugolo96

Essentially the argument boils down to: We cannot say direct mail advertising is bad for the environment because if people buy this way (online / phone), they don't drive to the store and therefore that is pollution that doesn't go into the environment.

The core of this argument is that DMA is preventing trips to the store. They will try to trick you, at least they got me for a bit, with thinking that all that paper for useless ads was bad for the environment. This put my eyes on D for a couple seconds. "Targeting ads seems to help prevent waste of paper and ads..." BUT THAT ISN'T THE ARGUMENT BEING MADE! Once you focus on how the premise is supporting the conclusion you narrow it down to this driving trip prevention issue and if it holds.

The logical assumption therefore is that consumers were going to make that trip in the first place, otherwise it is not prevented.

This was a strengthen question so even if B does not guarantee that the use of paper for this kind of advertising, for example, outweighs the reduced pollution from people not driving to the store, B still strengthens the conclusion by protecting it from the attack that people actually were not going to go to the store anyways and these ads are actually just adding to pollution (delivery, paper...)

Darklord

Hmm... ok thanks @jugolo96 !