#25 - Some advertisers offer certain consumers home
Please post below with any questions!
I struggled with this question and would like to know why A is correct?
What threw my off about a is the word "at least some" since I didn't see it mention about the consumers but only for the advertisers.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life."~ Prince
"At least some" is sort of a synonym for "some", and it doesn't have to have been previously mentioned for the consumers for us to see that it could be useful now. In other words, given the stimulus, we would tend to believe that what the advertisers do actually works for them. Answer A fits well with that, in saying that some folks buy more from the advertisers than if those folks didn't have the free computers.
Why is C wrong?
I kind of used the same reasoning to pick C...
Answer C says, "There are at least some consumers who browse the Internet using computers offered free of charge by the advertisers and who, if they did not use those computers to browse the Internet, would spend little if any money on purchases from those advertisers." This sounds tempting, but how do you know that those consumers spend little or no money? Maybe they already bought a lot from those advertisers...but would buy even more because of the advertising on the free computers! It could happen, so answer C is only a "could be true", not a "must be true".
Hope this helps,
Thank you for your reply.
So the part "little if" is fishy here right? Otherwise this could be the correct answer.
The "little if any..." part is problematic, yes. If Answer C had just the first part, "There are at least some consumers who browse the Internet using computers offered free of charge by the advertisers", that might be o.k. It's a lot of the rest that's the problem!
Hope this helps,
Can someone go over D?
Answer choice (D) says, "The advertisers would not be able to offer the computers absolutely free of charge if advertisements that accurately reflected the interests of the computers' users did not play continuously whenever they were in use."
This answer is incorrect because while we know that the targeted advertising is raising enough money to pay for the computers, we do not know that it is the only way to make that money, or that the advertisers couldn't afford them in general. Picking (D) goes beyond the scope, because we do not know enough about the advertisers to say when they would be unable to buy those computers.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for the explanation! but I have difficulty understanding why B and D are wrong.
My understanding is: According to the conclusion there is causal relation as follows:
using the free PC by consumers ----causes ("enables")---> the advertisers to transmit to each consumer adverts that accurately reflects their interests (equals precise targeting of individual consumers) which in turn ---causes ("results")---> in increased sales that ----causes---> advertisers ability to offer free PC.
Considering that causal relation requires that the "Effect" does not occur without the purported "cause". So we can say: "if no cause then no effect" (and vice versa). That's exactly what "D" says. The only problem I can find in answer choice D is the word "accurately" and "continuously" . The stimulus says that "as consumers use the computers to browse the Internet, information about their browsing patterns is sent to the advertisers, enabling them to transmit to each consumer advertising that accurately reflects his or her interests" but the link between such personalized (targeted) advertising does not necessarily include "accurate reflection of her individual interests". May be a reflection of individual interests works for sale increase purposes, even if not accurately reflective of individual interests or may be playing adverts "frequently" instead of "continuously" across the computers amounts to "THIS PRECISE TARGETING OF INDIVIDUAL CONSUMERS" (as stated in the conclusion of the stimulus). Any thought on that?
As regards B, the same reasoning applies. According to the foregoing causal chain inferred from the conclusion of the stimulus, using the free PC by consumers is indirectly the cause that enables the advertisers to offer free PC.
Could you please help me with this question? I am so confused. There must be something wrong with my analysis as there cannot be so many contenders!