PrepTest 151, Section 3, Question 2

What we’re looking for

Working the answers

• A
  Correct

  Counting the change would help us assess whether the customers realized they received too much. If they carefully counted it, the explanation that they simply overlooked the extra dollar becomes less convincing. If they didn't, the study may be treating unnoticed overpayments as deliberate dishonesty.

  Counting isn't the only imaginable way to notice an extra dollar, and counting doesn't guarantee that someone calculates the right amount. But the answer needn't settle every individual case. It asks about a practice that bears directly on the alternative explanation the argument ignores.

• B

  The conclusion concerns the people who received an extra dollar. We don't need those cash transactions to represent all transactions in the stores. Whether many other customers paid another way doesn't establish why the extra-dollar recipients kept their change.

• C

  Calling yourself honest doesn't establish how you behaved. More importantly, these are the people who returned the money. Their preferred description of themselves doesn't tell us whether the people who kept it noticed the extra dollar.

• D

  This asks about the people who gave the dollar back. The argument's questionable judgment concerns the much larger group who didn't return it. Why the returners thought they received the money doesn't establish whether the nonreturners knowingly kept an overpayment.

• E

  A five-dollar overpayment would be a different version of the experiment. People might respond differently because they notice it more easily or care more about the amount. That could be interesting to investigate, but it doesn't directly tell us whether the people in this one-dollar study acted knowingly. A addresses their actual handling of the change.