One should only buy a frying pan that has a manufacturer's warranty, even if it requires paying more, and even if one...

Nishant-Varma on July 19, 2021

Yes, can someone please explain this question?

Morad on October 11, 2021

Hi, not a tutor, but wanted to share my two-cents since there's no response yet.

The first sentence of the stimulus, which is also the conclusion, is the first key in understanding the correct answer: "One should only buy a frying pan that has a manufacturer's warranty..."

This is gets diagrammed as "Should Buy Frying Pan -> Has a Warranty". The "even if's" don't add anything to this claim. They're just applied for emphasis.

Why do you need a warranty? The next statement answers this by saying: "Manufacturers will not offer a warranty on a product if doing so means that they will need to reimburse many customers because the product did not work well or last long."

Using S&N rules, this gets diagrammed as
"Warrant leads to need to reimburse many customers for non-working product -> Not Offer Warranty"

I've replaced "mean" with "lead" to. It's the same meaning in this context. Applying the contrapositive gives us the following:

"Offer Warranty -> Warranty does NOT lead to need to reimburse many customers for non-working product".

Now we see the argument: "Because the warranty suggests that the product is not reimbursed for many customers for not working, then only warranty products should be bought."

The critical flaw in the argument is that it relies on an assumption that because something is not reimbursed often for not working means that it's a good working product.

The flaw can be easier realized by considering a real life example of this. Consider a specific Apple product that offers warranty - if MOST customers after buying it discovered it was non-working product but were simply too lazy to ship it back and ask for a reimbursement, then even though the provider had a warranty, the warranty itself wouldn't lend any guarantees as to whether it was a good working product or not.
If, on the other hand, we knew that for MOST customers that whenever the product wasn't working that it was reimbursed every time, then we'd be able to better rely on the warranty to say something about how functional the product is. By our premise, Apple wouldn't want to offer a warranty if it meant their products would be reimbursed often.

Note that this question is a Most Strengthens type question. So the answer choice that best supports the claim will be the answer.

Based on my earlier analysis, I'm anticipating an answer choice that addresses the flaw we raised. If I can't find it, then I want to be open minded looking for any answer choice that strengthens the claim for why you should only buy products with warranties.

Answer Choice A) immediately address the assumption that we called out earlier. If this is true, then it strengthens the suggestion that products with warranty are not reimbursed often because they are good working product.

Answer Choice B) - This says that frying pans with warranties work as well as frying pans without warranties at the time of purchase. This actually weakens the argument, if anything, because it attacks the special quality of a frying pan having a warranty.

Answer Choice C) - This is irrelevant. Knowing the proportional relationship between costs and the likelihood of a frying pan being covered does nothing to strengthen the claim that you should buy pans with warranties. There is nothing about costs and the pros of products with warranties.

Answer Choice D) - Irrelevant for same reason as C.

Answer Choice E) - The lack of clarity around what "full customer satisfaction" makes it suspicious at first glance.
Trying to apply the earlier example of Apple products - It could be that the reimbursements were quickly and efficiently dealt with for those few customers who weren't lazy enough to ask for reimbursement. So it means that when the product is bad, they fix the issue fast.
This does support the claim a little that products with warranties should be bought, but it's just too weak in comparison with answer choice A). It doesn't even say all products with warranties provide full customer service - it just says "most".

Hope this helps! This is only my understanding of the question. Extremely open to other views that fill in the gaps that my explanation fails to cover.