LSAT 148 – Section 3 – Question 11

LSAT 148 - Section 3 - Question 11

December 2016

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT148 S3 Q11
+LR
+Exp
Resolve reconcile or explain +RRE
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Sampling +Smpl
A
3%
154
B
1%
151
C
84%
164
D
9%
158
E
3%
155
129
142
154
 +Medium 149.233 +SubsectionMedium

Businesses frequently use customer surveys in an attempt to improve sales and increase profits. However, a recent study of the effectiveness of these surveys found that among a group of businesses that sold similar products, profits declined in most of the businesses that used surveys during the course of the study but not in most of the businesses that did not use any surveys during the course of the study.

"Surprising" Phenomenon
Why did profits decline for businesses that used a customer satisfaction survey designed to increase profits while businesses that did not use a survey experienced no such decline?

Objective
The right answer will explain some difference between the businesses that used the survey and the businesses that did not. That difference could be a result of the survey, or it could be some pre-existing factor. In either case, it will highlight an issue with the survey-using businesses that is not present in the others.

A
When one business increases its profits, its competitors often report a decline in profits.
This doesn’t explain why businesses that used a survey experienced declines in profits while others did not. Even if one group must do worse, we might expect the businesses that collected customer feedback to be the ones that faired better. We want to know why that didn’t happen.
B
Some businesses routinely use customer surveys.
This doesn’t add any new information. We already know that some businesses routinely use customer surveys—the stimulus tells us that!
C
Most businesses of the kind included in the study generally administer customer surveys only as a response to complaints by customers.
This is the explanation we need. If the surveys are only administered as a response to complaints, then the businesses that administered surveys are the ones that customers had complaints about. If customers were complaining, it makes sense that sales and profits declined!
D
Customers who complete surveys do not always respond accurately to all the questions on the survey.
Even if businesses acted on the results of inaccurate responses, it doesn’t explain why they would have worse profit growth than those that did not use surveys at all. This answer doesn’t tell us anything about the correlation between administering surveys and declining profits.
E
Some of the businesses included in the study did not analyze the results of the customer surveys they conducted.
This could explain why the surveys did not help some businesses increase their profits, but it doesn’t give us any information about why most of the survey-using businesses experienced decreased profits while most others did not.

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LSAT PrepTest 148 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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