Some people believe that advertising is socially pernicious-it changes consumers' preferences, thereby manipulating p...

Naz on October 28, 2014

The argument first gives an example about advertising: some believe advertising is socially pernicious, i.e. bad, because it changes preferences by manipulating people to want things they would not otherwise have wanted. The argument then compares this to a similar phenomenon in music: we are told that classes in music and art appreciation change people's preferences for various forms and music. But, the argument states that "nothing is wrong with these classes."

Therefore, since the argument is comparing the similarities between ads and music classes, nothing should be wrong with ads, as well, i.e. answer choice (C): "the fact that advertising changes consumers' preferences does not establish that it is bad."

Hope that clears things up!

aseikhon11 on September 15, 2020

Why is A wrong?

Victoria on October 2, 2020

Hi @aseikhon11,

Happy to help!

Answer choice (A) is incorrect because it is not supported by the stimulus.

The passage starts off by telling us that some people believe that advertising is socially pernicious because it manipulates people into wanting things that they wouldn't otherwise want.

In countering this view, the author points out that classes in art and music appreciation also change people's preferences and there is nothing wrong with these classes.

This suggests that we cannot conclude that advertising is bad because changing people's preferences is not inherently bad.

We cannot conclude from this that consumers would still have most of the same preferences even if they weren't advertised because the passage only tells us that advertising and classes in music and art appreciation change people's preferences.

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions.