#24 - Advertising agencies are often wrongly criticized for

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (D).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[sarahyates2]

I'm having a lot of trouble understanding the stimulus in this question and I think that's making it hard for me to go on to any of the answer choices.

What I do see is that it appears that author is accepting that advertising agencies cause people to desire and therefore purchase products they don't really need. Why? Because they admit that it is the purpose of the agencies to induce a desire for a product they believe will satisfy their desires.

So what they take issue with is that they're criticized for this? Sort of because people actually already buy what they buy anyways because of this desire/belief.

And then we're asked to fill in that "it is clear then that the desires that people believe products will satisfy ... "

I don't know ... are sort of inevitable? I don't know if I am making any sense, probably not because I am confused

I put E but mostly because I was running out of time. I'd greatly appreciate some insight into what the stimulus is saying, why D is right and why E is wrong. Thank you!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Sarah,

Based on your question, it looks like you were actually asking about question 24 rather than question 25, so I will ask the forum administrator to move your question and my answer to question 24.

This stimulus can be a bit hard to follow, so your confusion is understandable. The stimulus starts by claiming that "advertising agencies are often wrongly criticized for causing people to desire, and thus purchase, products that they don't really need" (my emphasis). What this sentence is getting at is that advertising agencies do not actually cause people to desire the products (which is why that criticism is wrong).

The stimulus then explains that the real reason people buy products is that they believe that these products will satisfy the desires that the people already have. In other words, the advertisements don't create new desires in people, instead they just convince people that these products will satisfy their already existing desires. For example, if someone has a desire to be well-dressed, the advertisement will indicate that the designer clothing being advertised will satisfy that desire.

The final sentence begins the conclusion, and this question would be classified as a Main Point (Fill in the Blank) question. The correct answer will summarize what the argument is claiming about "the desires that people believe products will satisfy." Based on the rest of the argument, a decent prephrase would be "are not actually created by advertisers, but are just used by advertisers to help sell the product." Answer D is a very close match of this prephrase. "Exploited" gets at the idea that the advertisers are simply using/taking advantage of customers' already existing desires to sell the products rather than creating new desires.