PrepTest 137, Section 3, Question 2
A study found that consumers reaching supermarket checkout(43 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(6 more words not shown)
- ADuring the study,(21 more words not shown)
- BA large proportion(30 more words not shown)
- CMany of the(20 more words not shown)
- DMany of the(28 more words not shown)
- EMany of the(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
An announcement about cookies could make someone think, ‘I hadn't planned on cookies, but those sound good.’ So I can see why more purchases after an advertisement would suggest that it works. The evidence gives us a sensible reason to take the explanation seriously.
Could something else happen at the same time? Suppose a display starts flashing when the announcement plays, or cashiers begin offering the advertised product to shoppers. Then purchases might rise because of that other prompt. Those are possibilities to check, not facts the study gives us.
What we’re looking for
We want to strengthen the claim that the advertisements are effective. Information connecting the purchases to a change in shoppers' behavior would help. We don't have to make the advertisement the only imaginable influence; we need better support for its having an effect.
Working the answers
- A
More shoppers isn't the same as shoppers being more likely to buy a particular product. Imagine 100 people checking out before the advertisement and 200 afterward, with one in ten buying cookies in each group. There would be more cookie buyers afterward, but the same purchase rate. The study already concerns an increased likelihood of purchase. A larger crowd alone doesn't strengthen the claim that advertising changed that likelihood.
- BCorrect
Many of these customers weren't planning to buy the product when they arrived, but bought it shortly after the advertisement. That makes the purchases look less like people simply following their existing shopping lists. The advertisement is a plausible prompt for the change.
They haven't said, ‘The advertisement made me buy it,’ and other influences remain possible. Still, their unplanned purchases add support to the advertisement's effectiveness. Strengthening doesn't require proving the entire causal story.
- C
Regular purchases don't show an effect from these advertisements. If someone always buys cookies, today's purchase could have happened with or without the announcement. Also, buying at least one advertised product doesn't tell us which particular advertisement affected which purchase.
- D
Not remembering an advertisement doesn't establish that it influenced the purchase. It also doesn't prove that it had no influence: someone could hear a message and later forget hearing it. Either way, this is not additional evidence that the advertisements worked.
- E
An occasional buyer could still have arrived today intending to buy this product. How often someone buys it is different from whether the advertisement changed today's decision. B addresses that change much more directly by establishing the absence of an initial intention to buy.
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