Q12 - To suit the needs

[ms.sylvialam]

I'm having a hard time 1)identifying the conclusion and 2) understand why A is the correct answer. I had narrowed down the contenders to A or B.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Good questions, and thanks for bringing this one to the forum!

1. This is not really an argument. Notice the question stem. It doesn't say that we're asked to find an answer choice that undermines the argument. Instead we're asked to find an answer choice that is undermined by the "statements" in the stimulus.

So in effect, we'll treat this as something along the lines of a "soft must be false" question. That means that the answer choice is an assertion that is roughly something that cannot be true given the statements in the stimulus. So no need to find the conclusion, since there isn't a conclusion in this question.

2. Answer choice (A) is undermined from the statements because the political campaigns find it useful to create controversial advertisements, that are not meant to persuade, but to generate additional free media coverage.

(B) is incorrect because it could be true. I think the key here is the word "admit." It's possible that only a small minority will admit to being persuaded even though a large percentage actually are persuaded by advertising campaigns. Also, the stimulus doesn't actually say that the political advertising campaigns will be successful. The only thing that is "successful" is the modification of the strategy from the political field to the corporate field. Successful modification does not mean that the strategy itself is actually successful.

Does that answer your questions?

[lhermary]

I'm having a hard time accepting (A) as the answer. Nowhere in the stimulus does it indicate that the actual intention of the strategy was to persuade the audience.

All it is saying is
- Advertising agencies modified a strategy originally developed for political campaigns for the purposes of corporate needs

- The strategy is to provide corporate clients with free air time

Is doesn't mention what the actual intentions are for the corporate clients. It requires an assumption to accept (A) as the answer.

I picked (C), although I thought it was weak.

Please help.

[sportsfan8491]

If I can post my thoughts on this....

(A) is correct and I don't see this answer as referring to any one group in particular. When I read this answer and paraphrased it in my own words, I saw it as saying:

"In general, when assessing the usefulness of an advertising campaign, one only needs to look at (i.e. based solely on) how persuasive the actual advertisements in the campaign were at convincing the campaign's intended audience of something."

But, the stimulus give us another criterion with which to judge the usefulness of a campaign's advertisements: did they garner additional media coverage and cause public officials to comment on them?

So, answer (A) is contradicted because the stimulus gives us another factor that can be used in judging their usefulness, besides that of persuading their audience directly.

(B) is wrong for the reasons previously mentioned by one of the experts in a previous post.

(C) is wrong because the actual political campaign managers aren't mentioned in this light and it could very well be the case that they were the "brains" behind the innovative political campaigns that were then successfully modified by the advertising agencies (to suit the needs of corporate clients). Granted, it seems like a weird sequence of events, but since none of the statements in the stimulus contradict this statement, it could be true and is thus an incorrect answer choice.

(D) is wrong because there is nothing in the stimulus that would even remotely contradict or undermine this answer choice's claim about what the motivations of corporations are. None of the statements in the stimulus contradict answer choice (D), which means that it could be true and, for that reason, it's incorrect.

(E) is wrong because we don't know the frequency with which these advertising agencies are chosen for various functions or campaigns; maybe there's no overlap between political and corporate agencies and each one only specializes in its niche market. Therefore, since none of the statements from the stimulus undermine or contradict this claim, this answer could be true and it's incorrect for that reason.

Experts, please feel free to provide your insights on anything I've said in my explanation.

I hope this is helpful.

[ohthatpatrick]

Great response!

I think the previous poster sounded confused by the goal of this really unusual question stem.

He/she said "Nowhere in the stimulus does it indicate that the actual intention of the strategy was to persuade the audience".

That's true, and that's basically why (A) is the correct answer!

This is an Inference-Least Compatible type question (basically a softer version of Must Be False). We read some facts, and then we try to pick the answer choice that sounds the most like it contradicts those facts.

Remember, 'unsupported' is not the same as 'contradictory'. Any answer choices that are merely unsupported are incorrect. For example if answer choice (B) said "Mustard is delicious", it would be wrong. Sure, we didn't talk about mustard at all, but that means that nothing in the paragraph could possibly contradict the idea that "mustard is delicious".

Essentially, for a correct answer to an Inference- Must Be False / Least Compatible type question, you CAN infer the OPPOSITE of the correct answer choice.

Negating (A), we'd get that "the usefulness of an ad campaign is NOT judged SOLELY by its ability to persuade audiences" ... can we support that? Yes! The statements said that this campaign successfully suits the needs of (is useful to) corporate clients because it garners free prime-time publicity.

Hope this helps.

[jewels0602]

I chose C because I got lured in with the "original" in the stimulus and thought how could they have gotten it from advertising when it was originally for campaign but an innovation can be original without the changing up the whole idea...

[PepitoH243]

I understood A as correct because If the usefulness of a campaign is based solely on the degree to which the campaign persuade the public then the agency should be focus on persuading the audience to consume whatever product or service they are advertising. But, instead they are being concentrated on the number of viewers and media coverage. What about if they get all the prime time of the major networks but they don't persuade anybody with their message? That will be totally useless.