September 2016 LSAT Section 1 Question 25

Some advertisers offer certain consumers home computers free of charge. Advertisements play continuously on the compu...

AndrewArabie on November 20, 2022

Answer choice C

The reason I ruled out C initially was because I knew that the answer choice had to establish that sales had to increase due to the advertising. That was made clear in A. In C, it seems to allow the sales to increase but doesn't guarantee it. My understanding of why C is wrong is still very fuzzy. I understand the stimulus does not establish what consumers would have spent their money on before but it still feels to me like it could be a correct answer. Can someone help make it more clear?

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Emil-Kunkin on November 22, 2022

Hi, this comes down to relative vs absolute numbers. C tells us that there must be some computer users who would have spend very little money with the advertised companies. This does not have to be true since all we know is there there is an increase. You can have an increase from zero dollars to 1000 dollars, or from 1000 dollars to a million. We know nothing about how much money the people would have spent before seeing the ads, only that they would have Spent less than they do with the ads. Perhaps they would have spent thousands before, but the ads made it tens of thousands.

AndrewArabie on November 26, 2022

Thank you Emil, insightful and instructive as always.

gracehazelhoff on June 25, 2023

This was a really helpful response. Thanks, Emil.