Radio producer: Our failure to attract new listeners over the past several years has forced us to choose between devo...

Irina on September 20, 2019

@Minerva,

This is a tricky one. Let's look at the stimulus. The radio station faces two options - devote airtime to more popular genres of music or stick with classical music that only appeals to a limited audience. This limited audience fails to generate enough revenue. There is a risk of going out of business if they stick with classical music, thus they should devote airtime to other genres.

In its simplest form, the argument is:
A v B
~A
B

It appears that for every answer choice popular genres of music and classical music correspond to different types of window treatments.

Let's look at each of the options.

(A) We should either buy blinds for the windows or make full-length curtains. Blinds are expensive. Thus, if cost is our greatest concern, we should make curtains.

The argument starts off nicely - blinds v. curtains/ classical music v. other genres, but then the reason for choosing curtains over blinds is due to the cost of curtains, whereas in the stimulus the reason for rejecting the classical music option is not because something is wrong with classical music but because the associated audience is limited and fails to generate enough revenue. The argument introduces the third variable - audience - to reject one of the options, and that is what we should be looking for in the answer choice as well. Thus, (A) is incorrect.

(B) We should either make curtains for the windows or buy blinds. Since the windows are not standard sizes, if we buy blinds we'll have to special order them. Since we do not have time to wait for special orders.

This argument again compares curtains - other genres v. blinds - classical music. But then it says "since the windows," which parallels the stimulus bringing in the audience - audience = windows, "are not standard sizes, we will have to special order blinds." This sentence parallels the fact that the radio will have to appeal to this small/ non-standard audience. Since we do not have time to wait for special orders/ if we appeal to them alone, we may go out of business, we should make the curtains/ we should devote time to other genres. Since (B)'s reasoning is most similar to the stimulus - remember most similar does not have to be identical - it is the correct answer choice.

(C) For the living room windows, we can make curtains or valances or both. We want to have privacy, and while curtains provide privacy, valances do not.

Incorrect. This argument offers three options: A, B or both A &B. Since the argument in the stimulus requires us to choose A v B, we can eliminate (C).

(D) Since we have very little fabric, we will have to either buy more or make valances instead of curtains. If we use this fabric to make valances, then we will have to buy blinds.

This argument is entirely different from the stimulus. Even if we try to argue that fabric corresponds to airtime, the stimulus never says the choice is due to limited airtime, rather it is revenue concerns due to the failure to attract listeners.

(E) We should either buy blinds or make curtains. If we buy blinds but do not make variances, the windows will look bare.

Incorrect. This argument starts off fine, but then it says if we buy blinds but do not make valances, introducing a third type of window treatment, whereas the stimulus only concerns two - classical music and other genres. The stimulus is not saying if we introduce other genres but do not also include X, then.. Since this conditional is absent from the stimulus, we can eliminate (E).

Let me know if you have any further questions.