Certain items—those with that hard-to-define quality called exclusivity—have the odd property, when they become available for sale, of selling rapidly even though they are extremely expensive. ██ █████ ██████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ███ ███ █ █████ ██ █ ███████ ██████ █████ ██ █████ ████ ████████ ███ ████ ██████████████████████████ ██ ████████ ██ ██ ███ ████████ █████ ███████ ██████████ █████ ████ █ █████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ██ █████ ██ █████████ ██████████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ███ ██████ ██████ ████ ████ ████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ █████ ██ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ███████ ███ █████ ███ █████
Immediately upon reading the stem’s abstract language (“the argument recommends a certain pricing strategy”), you should lock in on matching abstract concepts to their counterparts in the stimulus as a core challenge in this question. Here’s a legend of sorts:
The Strategy: when pricing goods, err on the side of setting the price too high.
The Alternative: when pricing goods, try to sell fast by setting the price too low.
This argument’s abstract structure is as follows:
Premise: The Alternative has [a major downside ].
Premise: Hitting the nail exactly on the head isimpossible .
________
Conclusion: You should adopt The Strategy.
In Method Of Reasoning questions (which this is), there’s not much reason to expect to find a flaw in the argument – often the arguments are totally fine. If you do notice a flaw, though, there’s a high chance the correct answer will describe the argument in a way that highlights the flaw.
In this case, the argument exhibits flawed weighing factors reasoning: The Alternative has one downside, therefore The Strategy is a better option overall.
The argument recommends a certain ███████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████
this strategy lacks █ █████████████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████████
(A)’s phrasing highlights the argument’s flawed net effect reasoning. The rejected alternative (pricing goods too low) has one counterproductive feature (calling exclusivity into question), so I recommend this certain pricing strategy (pricing goods too high).
this strategy has ███ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ████████ ████████████ ███ █████ ██ ███ █████████████
What advantages (plural!) does the rejected alternative (pricing goods too low) have? Point them out; write them down. If you found any, now point out where the stimulus says the recommended strategy (pricing goods too high) has those same advantages.
(B) is wrong because we can’t complete this exercise in a way that makes sense.
experience has proven ████ ████████ ██ ██ █████████ ████ ██████ ███ ███████ ███ ████ ███████████ █████ ████████
The notion of experience is absent in this stimulus. There’s certainly no mention of any experiences where we used the recommended strategy (pricing goods too high).
Even the criticism of the alternative strategy (pricing goods too low) isn’t necessarily based on experience – the premise just says “doing it is an error.”
Furthermore, if you’re gonna pick (C), you need to point out the part of the argument that says the reasons for the recommended strategy’s superiority elude analysis. That concept doesn’t occur in the stimulus at all.
this strategy does ███ ████ ██ ███████████ █████████ █████████ ██ █████
Broadly speaking, this stimulus does indirectly touch on the concept of buyers estimating the value of things – when they think a good has exclusivity, they’re willing to pay a lot for it.
On that logic, though, the recommended strategy (pricing goods too high) does rely on prospective buyers’ estimates of value. The strategy is precisely designed to ensure that prospective buyers’ sense of the product’s exclusivity isn’t threatened.
the error associated ████ ████ █████████ ██████ ███ █████ ██████████ ████ ███ ████████ ████████████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ █████████
“Unnoticed” is the killer here – it’s much too strong. We could potentially say the error associated with the recommended strategy (pricing goods too high) doesn’t risk undermining exclusivity like the alternative does, but that doesn’t mean super-high prices won’t be noticed at all. It’s just that the consequences of buyers noticing the high prices won’t be as dire (according to the argument).