November 2019 LSAT Section 2 Question 20

Social observer: Advertising agencies are willfully neglecting the most profitable segment of the market: older adult...

Gabe85 on September 8, 2020

Can vs. Will

The conclusion says "Therefore, advertising agencies 'CAN' maximize their clients' profits if they gear their advertisements mainly to older adults." My understanding is that it can happen, not that it guarantees it. So how can we shift from that "can" to the "will" in E: "Any advertising agency that gears its advertisements mainly to a population segment that controls 50 percent or more of this nation's personal disposable income WILL maximize its clients' profits." How do we go from a condition that make something possible to guaranteeing it?

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Gabe85 on September 8, 2020

sorry, typo:
How do we go from a condition that *can make something possible to guaranteeing it?

John on August 8, 2022

I was wondering the same thing, the use of "will" seems to imply a view of sufficient, whereas the passage only ever used "can" or similar language that suggested to me necessary. Advertising to an older population, based on the passage, is necessary to maximize profits, but not necessarily sufficient to do so on its own.

"Will" being the right answer seems to conflict with this.

John on August 8, 2022

Thinking about it further, and maybe Will vs. Can doesn't actually matter in this question? We're looking for an assumption that makes the conclusion true. If we assume that advertising to the older population that controls 51+% of the disposable income is sufficient to maximize profits, it would allow us to conclude that a company doing so indeed *can* maximize profits, even if it's not the strongest conclusion we could draw.

Still would like some clarification as it feels like this isn't watertight (i.e. the assumption in E is clearly fallacious by using "Will", e.g. if I print a single flier directed to the older population and no other advertising, I won't maximize my profits).

Emil-Kunkin on August 14, 2022

Hi,

I agree with your reasoning 100%. We are trying to prove that agencies can maximize profits by doing something. If we are told that doing that thing guarantees that they will maximize profits, we know then that the agencies can maximize profits through that action.