Critical Reasoning

Restaurant reviewer: In response to lagging sales based on a reputation of poor quality, Lanzillotti's Pizzeria launched a city-wide marketing campaign reintroducing its pizza as being made with organic ingredients and flavorful sauces, evidence of a new emphasis on quality pizza. But after visiting Lanzillotti's last night I can only conclude that the reintroduction was simply empty advertising language, as my pizza tasted no better than the pizza I had eaten at Valvano's earlier in the week.

Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the reviewer's conclusion?

1) Valvano's Pizza is not known for using organic ingredients in its pizzas.
2) Other diners on the same evening also reported that Lanzillotti's pizza was no better than Valvano's.
3) Valvano's Pizza is not considered among the highest-quality pizzas in town.
4) The reviewer ordered the most popular pizza that Lanzillotti's offers.
5) Lanzillotti's appetizers and desserts were not made with organic ingredients

This is a Strengthen question, so it's nice to remind ourselves of some common ways to strengthen:

-remove possible weakening idea
-add additional supporting evidence
-prove unstated assumption is true

There are others, but it's always a good idea to read the Question Stem first to get a clear idea of what your job is going to be for the next 2 minutes.

The incorrect choices will be:

-weakening
-irrelevant

Now let's break down the argument into its component parts:

Evidence: $$$ slow --> bad rep; Thus: organic marketing

Conclusion: Pizza taste = empty advertising b/c of V-pizza

Assumption: Reviewer assumes V's pizza is bad, and it's impossible L's actually tried and YET also had bad-tasting pizza

Maybe they tried and failed? Maybe there's another reason the pizzas tasted similarly bad?

Question: What would strengthen the reviewer?

Prediction: L's intentions were bad, no other reason pizza was bad, V's pizza sucks

Let's do a quick pass through the choices, and evaluate them based on how well they match our prediction.

A. - (this is not the same as saying V's pizza is terrible; it could still be delicious and inorganic!)
B. + (but only if V's pizza is bad...IS it bad? We have no evidence)
C. ? ("highest quality" not as good as bad)
D. - (popularity of the pizza irrelevant)
E. - (out of scope)

The final two are (B) and (C). Choice (C) is more important, since the author's entire conclusion hinges on this comparison between L and V, but absolutely nothing is know about Valvano's from the passage.

Think about the alternate outcome:

What if V's pizza IS one of the best in town? Well, then it would REALLY weaken the author's argument. If V is one of the best, then it's not so bad that L's is bad in comparison. If you say you're "Not as good as Mozart," you might still be an incredible composer!

The correct answer is C.

Takeaway: If you are unsure whether a choice is Strengthening, negate it. If you "turn it around," does it Weaken the conclusion? It should if it's a good strengthener!

Respectfully, I disagree with the answer to this question. I'm not going to justify another answer--I just think the question needs to be revised (I know what source it comes from but I won't name names).

Put simply, this is a non-Official question where a lack of editing makes identification of the answer more or less just a guess!

I've made a video explanation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV7SwBP1S0I

In short, however, apply this:

a) IF we can assume that organic = better, this is viable -- ??

b) We're only concerned with the objective quality of the pizza; in any case it does nothing more than give us L = V, which is established in the argument NO

c) V is "not the best," implying that L = "not the best." DOES NOT, however, indicate lack of improvement (e.g., improvement from POOR to ACCEPTABLE) -- ??

d) Popularity of the pizza is irrelevant to quality -- out of scope. NO

e) Appetizers and desserts are not pizza -- out of scope. NO

So is the answer C or A? Depends on whether we choose to assume a) organic = better or c) that "not the best" is "not improved." Neither one is a particularly good assumption to make. Flip a coin!

The moral of the story is to use Official questions for Verbal or risk confusion like this.