#11 - Gyms and fitness centers are sometimes good places to

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thank you!

[medialaw111516]

Can someone please explain the difference between A and C? I think I just got them mixed up

[Claire Horan]

Hi MediaLaw,


(A) can be diagrammed as follows:
Good source of used exercise machines offers some well-maintained machines at reasonable prices

(C) would be diagrammed as:
place where one can buy well-maintained, used, reasonably priced exercise machines Good place to buy used exercise machines

They are fairly close to reversals of each other, but there are also some slight differences. Let us know if you have any more questions!

[theamazingrace]

I am still a bit confused as to why C is correct and A is not. I choose A because of the mention of "any good source" since the stimulus mentions Gyms and Fitness centres as places to buy used exercise machines.

Thanks

[Robert Carroll]

Grace,

Answer choice (A) doesn't tell you what makes something a good source. It claims what is true of things that are good sources. So, if something is a good source, you could infer certain things about it. But the point of the argument in the stimulus is that we don't yet know what IS a good source, and want an answer that helps show us that gyms and fitness centers are good sources.

In rough outline, we want "Gyms are good sources."

Saying "A good source has these qualities" doesn't tell me what's a good source in the first place. If I could find a good source, answer choice (A) would then tell me additional facts about that good source. But I want to find a good source as my conclusion! Telling me what follows once I already have the conclusion is useless - I'm not there yet, and if I were there, there would be nothing else I need to know.

This is a general property of Strengthen, Assumption, and Justify answer choices. If the answer is a conditional and the concept in the conclusion is in the sufficient condition, the answer is going to be useless, because it's going to tell you where you can go AFTER proving the conclusion, and not help you make any progress TOWARD the conclusion.

Robert Carroll

[lichenfarmer]

Hi! I was wondering if I could get a general walkthrough of this question? For some reason, I don't really know how to diagram this and it's confusing me a lot. Thanks!

[Robert Carroll]

lichen,

I don't think I would diagram the stimulus at all. The conclusion is the first sentence, and this is a Strengthen question. So, given the premises, we want an answer that uses that premise information to make gyms and fitness centers good places to buy used exercise equipment. The information we know about such places from the premises is that they sell old machines at reasonable prices, and that the build quality of their machines is better than that of home machines. Further, they are likely to be well-maintained. So I'd look for an answer saying something like "Places with used machines of good quality, that was well-maintained, offered at reasonable prices, are good places to buy used exercise machines." That's just about what answer choice (C) says.

Robert Carroll