Critical Reasoning: Discrepancy problems

The CAT Critical Reasoning question type “Explain a Discrepancy” has a very specific goal. If you know what your goal is, you’ll be much more likely to answer the question correctly. If you don’t, it can be very easy to get turned around and fall into a trap. Try this problem then we’ll talk about how Discrepancy questions work! “Products sold under a brand name used to command premium prices because, in general, they were superior to nonbrand rival products. Technical expertise in product development has become so widespread, however, that special quality advantages are very hard to obtain these days and even harder to maintain. As a consequence, brand-name products generally neither offer higher quality nor sell at higher prices. Paradoxically, brand names are a bigger marketing advantage than ever. “Which of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the paradox outlined above? “(A) Brand names are taken by consumers as a guarantee of getting a product as good as the best rival products. “(B) Consumers recognize that the quality of products sold under invariant brand names can drift over time. “(C) In many acquisitions of one corporation by another, the acquiring corporation is interested more in acquiring the right to use certain brand names than in acquiring existing production facilities. “(D) In the days when special quality advantages were easier to obtain than they are now, it was also easier to get new brand names established. Before we dive into the solution, let’s talk about what you are supposed to be doing for Discrepancy questions in the first place. Discrepancy arguments will present some kind of surprising series of facts—a paradox, to use the word that the argument above uses. The question is asking you to find a new piece of information that will resolve or fixthis discrepancy. You’re looking for the answer choice that provides a new fact that will cause you to say, “Oh, I see! There really isn’t a discrepancy at all. This new fact explains everything; the situation makes sense now.” Step 1: Identify the Question How do you know that this is a Discrepancy question in the first place? First, the question stem for this type will always contain the language “if true” (or a synonym). This language signals that the answers will represent new information. Be careful about crossing something off just because it seems out of scope. (By the way, three question types have the “if true” language in the question stem: Strengthen, Weaken, or Explain a Discrepancy.) The question stem will also contain language asking you to explain something or to resolve a problem. As soon as you identify the question as a Discrepancy question, you now know that you’ll need to articulate the actual discrepancy from the argument. Let’s do that! Step 2: Deconstruct the Argument The first sentence indicates something that used to be true: people paid more for brand-name products because the products were better than others. Nowadays, though, quality is a lot more equal across lots of products. Now, brand-name products are no longer higher quality and they don’t cost more money. BUT brand names are still a huge marketing advantage! That seems weird. How can that be? It seems like brand-name products have lost all of their advantages: they’re not higher quality and the companies can’t even charge more money for them anymore. So why are brand names even more of a marketing advantage than they used to be? There must be some other advantage to a brand name that the argument hasn’t articulated. Step 3: State the Goal On Discrepancy questions, the goal is to find an answer that fixes the discrepancy. The correct answer will cause the whole scenario to make sense. Also, remind yourself of the most common trap on these problems: a Reverse Logic trap. Some answers will actually heighten the discrepancy, making it worse! Your job is not to make the discrepancy worse. Your job is to fix the discrepancy. Step 4: Work from Wrong to Right “(A) Brand names are taken by consumers as a guarantee of getting a product as good as the best rival products.” Consumers see a brand name as a guarantee of a certain level of quality, even if that quality isn’t necessarily higher than the quality of rival products. Yes, that’s an advantage. Even though companies can’t charge more for brand-name products nowadays, they can sell more (in volume) since consumers still perceive an advantage to buying a brand name. This one looks good; keep it in. “(B) Consumers recognize that the quality of products sold under invariant brand names can drift over time.” You may have to pause a moment over the word invariant. It’s not a commonly used word. If you’re not sure what it means, here’s how you can decode it: vary = change. Variant = something different. In- at the beginning of a word means “take the opposite meaning.” For example, possible means that something can be done.Impossible means that it can’t. So if variant means something different or changing, then invariant is something that doesn’t change. Aninvariant brand name, then, is a brand name that stays the same over time; it doesn’t change. This choice is saying that a product sold under the same brand name may have “drifting” quality over time. This is a Reverse Logic answer: it heightens the discrepancy. If consumers can’t count on the quality of a particular brand-name product, then why would they be more likely to buy that product? They wouldn’t. This choice doesn’t go along with the idea that the brand name is a bigger marketing advantage than ever. Eliminate. “(C) In many acquisitions of one corporation by another, the acquiring corporation is interested more in acquiring the right to use certain brand names than in acquiring existing production facilities.” This certainly supports the idea that brand names are a bigger marketing advantage than ever! It’s just missing one thing: it doesn’t explain why this is so. Your job is to fix the discrepancy, not to support the idea that brand names are a bigger marketing advantage than ever. Someone who mistakenly thought this was a Strengthen question would likely pick this answer. Eliminate. “(D) In the days when special quality advantages were easier to obtain than they are now, it was also easier to get new brand names established.” We’re trying to resolve a discrepancy that exists right now, but this choice is about something that was true in the past. That past situation doesn’t apply to the present-day paradox. Eliminate.   The correct answer is (A). it provides an alternative benefit that was not articulated in the argument: the brand name still has value because people trust that this product will be at least as good as other, similar products. Key Takeaways for Discrepancy Problems: (1) Know how to identify the question type (if true + explain, resolve, account for) and what you’re trying to do: find a choice that fixes the discrepancy. (2) What is the discrepancy in question? Articulate this clearly to yourself before you go to the answers. (3) Watch out for trap answers. The most common trap answer on a Discrepancy question will heighten the discrepancy, not fix it. Other traps might answer the wrong question, as answer (C) did in this problem (it potentially strengthened the idea that the brand name is a bigger advantage than ever—but that’s not what you were asked to do!).