PrepTest 134, Section 3, Question 26
Acquiring complete detailed information about all the pros(54 more words not shown)
The conclusion of the argument(11 more words not shown)
- ARational consumers who(29 more words not shown)
- BWhenever it is(19 more words not shown)
- CThe benefits of(20 more words not shown)
- DRational consumers usually(24 more words not shown)
- EConsumers who do(32 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
How much research is worth doing depends on what you expect to gain.
Think about buying a house versus buying a cup of coffee. Learning more about a house could help avoid a very expensive mistake. Investigating every detail of a cup of coffee might take far more effort than avoiding one disappointing drink is worth. These examples help explain why skipping complete information can be reasonable.
But the argument doesn't conclude merely that skipping research is sometimes rational. It says consumers who don't bother acquiring the information are behaving rationally. How do we know they satisfy the condition in the rule?
What we’re looking for
The rule focuses on expectations. If a consumer doesn't expect the benefits of complete information to outweigh its cost and difficulty, declining to acquire it is rational. Someone might instead expect a big benefit and still skip the research through impatience or carelessness. To prove the conclusion about the consumers who don't bother, we need to connect that group with the expectation the rule describes. Their behavior alone hasn't told us what they expect.
Working the answers
- A
This starts with rational consumers who have the relevant expectation and tells us what they usually do. We need to start with the consumers who skip the research and establish that they have that expectation. Predicting the behavior of people already described as rational doesn't show that every person displaying the behavior is rational.
- B
Even if declining to research were rational, this would tell us that doing the research is irrational. But whether declining is rational is the very point we need to establish for these consumers. B assumes that status before describing an alternative action, so it doesn't supply the missing fact about their expectations.
- C
Usually is not enough to establish the conclusion about all the consumers who don't bother. More fundamentally, this concerns the actual balance of costs and benefits. The stated rule concerns what the consumer expects that balance to be. A consumer's expectation could differ from the actual value of the information.
- D
We haven't established that the consumers in the conclusion are rational, so a claim about what rational consumers usually expect doesn't identify this group's expectations. This would require assuming their rationality in order to reach the fact we need to prove it.
- ECorrect
The people who skip acquiring complete information don't expect its benefits to outweigh its costs and difficulty. That puts the exact group in the conclusion inside the rule's condition. The rule then supports calling their decision rational. We don't have to prove that more research would actually be a waste in every case; the argument's criterion is their expectation about whether the benefits would be worth it.
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