The only way that bookstores can profitably sell books at below-market prices is to get the books at a discount from ...
mikeheathJanuary 26, 2020
Answer B
Why is it that High Sales Volume is the sufficient condition and not the necessary condition?
"To generate such volume, bookstores must either cater to mass tastes or have exclusive access to a large specialized market, such as medical textbooks, or both." This creates the final conditional diagram: High sales volume - > Cater to mass tastes OR Have exclusive access to large specialized market
Replies
Create a free account to read and
take part in forum discussions.
We are looking at the sentence: "To generate such volume, bookstores must either cater to mass tastes or have exclusive access to a large specialized market, such as medical textbooks, or both."
We can think about this sentence as reworded to: "IF bookstores are to generate such volume, THEN they must either cater to mass tastes or have exclusive access to a large specialized market, such as medical textbooks, or both."
This rewording maintains the same meaning as the original sentence but makes the S->N language clearer through the use of "if" and "then." Since "generate some volume" follows "if," it is the Sufficient condition. Since "cater to mass tastes or have exclusive access" follows "then," it is the Necessary condition. The original sentence diagrams exactly the same and is fairly standard S->N language.
We can also think about this in the big picture. Either catering to mass tastes or having exclusive access is REQUIRED in order for a bookstore to generate such volume, so it follows that these required components form the Necessary condition. In turn, generating such volume is ENOUGH to know that a bookstore either caters to mass taste or has exclusive access, so we say it is Sufficient.
Does that make sense? Please let us know if you have any other questions!
SkylarJanuary 26, 2020
@mikehealth, allow me to add to this briefly.
Answer choice (B) "A bookstore that caters to mass tastes or has exclusive access to a large specialized market will have a high sales volume," can be reworded to "IF a bookstore caters to mass tastes or has exclusive access to a large specialized market, THEN it will have a high sales volume." As we can see, this flips the conditions from those identified in the passage and creates an entirely different meaning.
Let's say we have a bookstore that we know caters to mass tastes. According to the information in the passage alone, we could not make a conclusion about whether or not this bookstore generates a high sales volume. This is because catering to mass tastes is not Sufficient. However, under (B) we could go ahead and conclude that the bookstore does generate a high sales volume, because in (B) that is Sufficient. This highlights how the meaning of (B) differs from that of the passage.
