LSAT 148 – Section 3 – Question 25

LSAT 148 - Section 3 - Question 25

December 2016

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT148 S3 Q25
+LR
+Exp
Strengthen +Streng
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Net Effect +NetEff
A
3%
156
B
51%
166
C
8%
158
D
16%
161
E
21%
160
152
163
173
 +Hardest 149.233 +SubsectionMedium

Direct-mail advertising usually consists of advertisements for products to be purchased from the home, so the perception that it is bad for the environment is misguided. Because of direct-mail advertising, millions of people buy products by phone or online—products whose purchase would otherwise require the use of a car, thus adding pollutants to the air.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that direct-mail advertising is not bad for the environment. This is because direct-mail advertising usually advertises products to be purchased from home. This leads to millions of people buying products from home. If they didn’t purchase these products at home, purchase of these products would require using a car, which would add pollutants to the air.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that a significant proportion of the products bought as a result of direct-mail advertising would still be bought had direct-mail advertising not existed. The author also assumes that there’s no aspect of purchases from home that produce more environmental damage than those purchases would have been had they been purchased after using a car.

A
Although the primary intent of most direct-mail advertisers is to convince people to buy products from their homes, direct mail can also lead to increased sales in stores by customers who prefer to see a product prior to purchasing it.
This weakens the argument by showing that direct-mail advertising might increase sales in stores, which would generally require use of a car, which would add pollutants to the air.
B
Most of the products purchased in response to direct-mail advertisements would be purchased even without the direct-mail advertisements.
This confirms that without direct-mail advertising, pollutants from in-person sales would actually have occurred. In theory, direct-mail advertisements might have just caused purchases that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred. (B) eliminates this possibility.
C
A person who receives and reads a direct-mail advertisement is more likely to purchase the product advertised than is a person who reads an advertisement for a product in a magazine that they subscribe to.
The comparative effectiveness of direct-mail ads and magazine ads has no clear impact. We already know that people buy products from home due to direct-mail ads. Even if these are more effective than others, we still don’t know the environmental impact of direct-mail ads.
D
Usually, a company that sends out direct-mail advertisements has good reason to think that the person to whom the advertisement is sent would be more interested in the product than would the average person.
(D), unlike (B) doesn’t establish that the people who buy products from home would have bought those products without the direct-mail ads. There might be signs those people are more interested in the products, but that doesn’t mean they would buy without the ads.
E
Products purchased as the result of direct-mail advertising comprise an increasingly large portion of the consumer products purchased each year.
This doesn’t reveal anything about the environmental impact of direct-mail ads. We still don’t know whether direct-mail ads are causing people to buy from home products that would otherwise be purchased by using a car.

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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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