Q8 - A significant amount of

[hersimar.anand]

Still don't see how the answer can be (D).

Even if the individual rate has not changed, by virtue of the fact that library rates have increased, can we not still not conclude that publishers are now more profitable than ever? Or am I missing something?

[tommywallach]

Hey Hersimar,

Always important to focus very deeply on the core of the argument, namely the conclusion and the premise:

Conclusion: Journals = way more profitably now than a years ago

Premise: Average library subscription rate up a lot, costs same

We want to weaken this argument, so let's look at our answer choices.

(A) Just because the costs are getting passed on to the consumer doesn't mean the journal isn't getting its money.

(B) Even if that's the case, if they're giving more money to the journals, the journals will be more profitable.

(C) This is a given, and adds nothing to the argument.

(D) If most subscribers are individuals, and the subscription rates for individuals hasn't gone up, this weakens the conclusion. Now, if you wrote the conclusion as you did "Publishers are more profitable than ever," you might struggle to see the problem. But look at my conclusion: "Publishing is MUCH MORE profitable." If libraries only make up a tiny fraction of total income, and the vast majority of income is coming from sources that are NOT paying more, then it is unlikely that profits are MUCH MORE than they used to be.

(E) This is irrelevant.

Remember the game here. You're not picking the perfect answer; you're picking the best answer. Even if you hate (D), which is fair enough, there's no better choice.

Hope that helps!

-t

[ganbayou]

Hi,

So just wanted to double check...when B says "represents only a small fraction of its total operating budget" it means the University's total operating budget? I thought it is the journal's...and thought since the library represents the small portion, it does not increase "much more" same reasoning for D. (So I was not sure between B and D)

In any case...I'm still not sure why B is wrong
If it is a small portion, it will hurt the conclusion "much more profit" isn't it?

[henryma9]

Hi,

I just want to question the answer (D)
(D) As stated, most subscribers are individuals, and this is exactly the point you hit on. But there may be an explanation that what if university libraries contribute the most amount of funds to scholarly journals even though they take the least proportion among the subscribers? It's like the airline company gains the most profits from the first and business classes which take much less proportion compared with that of the economy class.

Hope you could entangle my puzzles! Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

to the previous poster, yes (B) is about the UNIVERSITY's budget, so it has no relevance to the conclusion, which is about the budgets of SCHOLARLY JOURNALS.

to the last poster, you're right that we COULD spin some story in which the universities are a minority of subscribers but still have a significant impact on the revenue of scholarly journals.

Make sure you realize that a correct answer to Strengthen doesn't PROVE, and a correct answer to Weaken doesn't REFUTE.

Is there an answer choice here that you think weakens MORE than (D)?

If not, you have to go with (D) as the credited response. A lot of correct answers to Weaken are pretty unsatisfying because all they do is introduce some doubt ... they don't convince us of anything.

But that's how litigators weaken each other's cases. They introduce doubt into the jury's mind. There's no mic-drop, "Case dismissed" moments.

We all agree with you, though, that (D) is a pretty lame correct answer.

[kyuya]

Core of the argument:

- average subscription rate a library pays for journals has increased dramatically + cost to publish journal has remained constant
- publishing journals therefore more profitable

We must weaken this argument. Personally I picked (D) during the timed PT, but got it wrong with (B) in blind review. I'll go through my reasoning of why I switched and hopefully it makes this question more clear.

Wrong first..

(A) Irrelevant. How they compensate for the cost tells us nothing about if journals are now much more profitable.

(B) This is the only remotely attractive answer choice aside from the right one, if you're like me you eliminated (A) (C) and (E) really quickly and got a bit stuck.

Initially, I though this weakened the argument because if it only represented a small fraction of the total operating budget then perhaps journals did not become much more profitable. Why? Because if it is only a small fraction of a budget, it must be a negligible amount of money right?

Here is where I - and I think others - may have went wrong. This is an assumption you are making. It is very possible that a small fraction of a total operating budget is actually quite large, because the total operating budget could just be exceptionally big. For example, lets say the total operating budget is 100 million, but only 10 million is used for acquisition budget. A small fraction overall, but still a lot of money, right?

(C) Irrelevant. This tells us about the publishing industrys needs, but this tells us nothing about if it is more profitable.

(E) Irrelevant. Frequency has nothing to do with price in this case.

On to (D) ..

(D) Here is the right answer. If most (this could even mean 99%) of scholarly journals are individuals, and their prices are unchanged, would getting 1% of people who pay to use a product significantly change the overall profitability? Probably not. It points toward profits changing negligibly - and remember the conclusion isn't stating it became merely more profitable. Its saying it became WAY more profitable.