#22 - Newspaper: Increases in produce prices

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[mepstlsat24]

Having trouble following the logic behind why E is correct. So the competitor goes down and then these other 2 companies would presumably get the failed competitor's sales (first off, isn't this a large assumption to make)? So because of the increased sales...then what? I'm sort of confused how this links up to the idea of increased prices leading to an increase in planting gardens.

Please help!

[Adam Tyson]

Focus on the causal nature of this argument, meps, and it should get much easier. The author has noted that sales by the two largest seed companies have increased lately. He suggests that the cause of that increase is that produce prices have driven more people to plant gardens. Our author is apparently assuming that retail seed sales overall have gone up. To weaken a causal argument, look for an answer that does one of the following:

1. Suggest an alternate cause
2. Show that where the cause is present, the effect is absent'
3. Show that where the cause is absent, the effect is present
4. Suggest that the supposed causal relationship may be reversed
5. Attack the validity or reliability of any data that may have been used to support the claim

Answer E here is a great alternate cause answer. A large retail seed company going out of business could easily be the cause of increased sales at the two largest companies as customers turn to the remaining options. Overall seed sales may not have increased at all! We don't have to make any assumptions here about whether the top two companies actually got those customers, but only have to recognize that this COULD be the cause of the increase at those two companies. We aren't looking to disprove the claim of increased produce prices causing more people to plant gardens, but only to weaken that claim by introducing some element of doubt. Answer E here does just that in classic LSAT fashion.

Dig a little into the elements of causal reasoning and see if that starts to become a little more obvious and second-nature to you. Depending on which of our books you have, there should be plenty of material for you to look over on that subject, as the LSAT typically has a relatively large number of LR questions that use it.

Good luck!

[mepstlsat24]

Hi Adam,

I just want to clarify the first part.

"The author has noted that sales by the two largest seed companies have increased lately. He suggests that the cause of that increase is that produce prices have driven more people to plant gardens. Our author is apparently assuming that retail seed sales overall have gone up."

I feel like the author never really says this. He says that increase in prices has caused an increase in personal gardens. THen in the next sentence, he says that sales of the two retail companies have increased. Is he assuming that the increase in prices led to increase in sales (which in turn led to increase in gardens)? I am having trouble making that connection. Is that something we are supposed to assume that the author has done wrong? Because it seems to me that the second sentence can be interpreted as independent from the first. What I mean by that is, how do we know that he is making this assumption that the prices led to increase in sales?

Thanks for your help!

[Adam Tyson]

The first sentence is a conclusion. We can tell that it is not a premise because the author says "apparently", meaning he isn't expecting us to accept it as fact but instead as a claim that is supported by another claim, a premise. The second sentence is that premise (actually two premises rolled into one - see below). So, if we restructure the argument we get:

Premise: Seed sales at the two biggest companies went up last year
Premise: Last year there was a spike in produce prices
Conclusion: That spike must have caused more people to plant gardens

You're right that the author never says that seed sales overall have gone up, but that appears to be an assumption necessary for the argument, doesn't it? If seed sales have not increased, then there is no longer any reason to believe that more people are planting gardens! Part of our analysis has to involve identifying what assumptions the author made, because that is where the flaws happen. If there were no assumptions, there would be no flaws, and nothing to weaken!

To weaken this argument you can focus on that assumption and suggest that perhaps overall sales did not increase (which turned out to be at the heart of the correct answer), or it would also be reasonable to attack the causal conclusion, perhaps suggesting that retail sales of seeds can go up for some reason other than more planting (like perhaps people are hoarding seeds in fear of a coming food shortage).

Final note: when you are asked to weaken an argument, that argument has to be imperfect in some way. The author must have done something wrong that we can take advantage of. When you are having trouble figuring out how to weaken an argument, ask yourself what the author did wrong, what was his flaw, and then weaken by pointing it out or otherwise taking advantage of it.

[mepstlsat24]

Thank you! Very helpful

[harvoolio]

I had selected (C) assuming an alternate cause of an increase in more people planting personal gardens by instead shifting from demand from commercial gardening due to the shortage.

But I believe I misunderstood what I am trying to weaken in that I am not trying to weaken the conclusion of "The spike in produce prices caused more people to plant personal gardens." but rather the argument of "The increase in the price of produce caused an increase in the planting of personal gardens which is evidenced by sales increasing 19% in the two largest retail companies (presumably because more people planting means more people purchasing seed to plant)."

(C) does not necessarily mean that an increase in produce prices still did not cause more people to plant gardens as an increase in produce prices could drive an increase in both community and personal gardening as people try to control personal/individual food costs through two forms of non-commercial gardening. Yes, (C) can instead/also be an alternate cause of "personal gardening" but might be an answer if everything else was bad.

(E) This answer choice weakens the unstated argument part of “more people planting gardens caused seed sales at the two biggest companies to increase last year.” in the overall argument of “The spike in produce prices caused more people to plant gardens which is evidenced by sales increasing 19% in the two largest retail companies (presumably because more people planting means more people purchasing seed to plant)." It weakens through alternate cause, because assuming constant demand, the bankrupt seed companies' sales would shift to the remaining companies in the seed industry thereby increasing sales by 19% as the two biggest companies (along with the remaining industry companies) increase supply to fulfill comparable demand.

Is another way to state this might be that ( E) weakens the argument by attacking the evidence through showing an alternate cause of the evidence? Because (E) would show that an increase in sales by 19% for the two largest retail companies is not evidence for the claim that “The spike in produce prices caused more people to plant personal gardens."

Thanks.

[Adam Tyson]

I think you are helping answer C too much in your analysis, harvoolio, but your analysis of E looks pretty good. Waiting lists at community gardens getting longer tells us nothing about whether the price increase is causing more planting personal gardens unless you also assume that people on those waiting listing lists get tired of waiting. Maybe they are getting longer because more people are interested in that option to offset the high prices of produce, or maybe they are getting longer because more people are interested in eating locally raised food, or hobby gardening has become more popular since certain celebrities and lifestyle bloggers started advocating for it, or because many large community gardens got shut down for some reason, or...this could go on for days.

The evidence is that prices went up and two large companies saw an increase in sales. The author is concluding that the increase caused the increase in sales, and is further assuming that the seeds being sold are for personal gardening and not for some other purpose. Probably not a bad assumption, since these are, after all, retail seed companies and not wholesalers, but an assumption nonetheless.

Answer E weakens by attacking the data. The author's use of the data suggests that he is also assuming an overall increase in seed sales, but answer E gives a different look at that data - sales may not have increased at all, but the market may simply have shifted.

I hope that helps!

[freddythepup]

Hi Adam,

I got confused by your two responses. In your first post you mentioned that the author is assuming the prices going up which led to increase in planting of gardens is the cause for the seed sales to have gone up. In your second post, you said that the seed companies sales going up is a premise for increase in produce prices leading to more planting of personal gardens. When I read this, I immediately saw the first sentence as the conclusion (increase in produce prices have led to increase in planting of personal gardens), and the second sentence about seed companies sales going up as a premise for this conclusion. Can you please clarify? Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

I'll try, Freddy!

The premises are:

1. produce prices spiked last year
2. sales at two companies increased last year

The conclusion is that the price increase last year caused more planting in personal gardens

The assumptions are:

1. Sales increases at those two companies indicate a more general increase in sales, rather than just a shift in who has what market share
2. Sales by retail seed companies correlate with planting personal gardens

To weaken the argument, we can attack either of those assumptions. Answer E attacks the first one, suggesting the possibility of a shift in market share rather than a general increase in sales. It doesn't prove it, but it certainly raises doubt about that assumption.

I hope that helps!