When we're asked to EVALUATE an argument, it's implied that there is currently missing information - UNSTATED ASSUMPTIONS - that would be needed for the argument to logically cohere.
Premise: Freewheeler's sales for May, June, July, and August totaled over 50,000.
Conclusion: As a result, Fedora will in all likelihood easily meet its stated sales goal of 120,000 for Freewheeler's first year of release.
Missing information:
- will the rate of car buying be the same for the rest of the year, i.e. 50k every 4 months?
- or are the months May-Aug traditionally higher car-buying months? Or higher for THIS car? (It's a convertible - common sense might suggest that we sell more in the summer, assuming that this car company is in the northern hemisphere)
- are there other circumstances (the economy in general, people's abilities to get car loans, etc) that are likely to change over the next few months?
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A. Fedora is the market leader in this category of automobile.
If this is true... sales could still slump in other months relative to May-Aug, while still being higher than for other cars. Or sales could be constant all year. This doesn't give us information that helps us to assess the unstated assumptions.
B. Freewheeler is significantly more expensive than similar models produced by Fedora's competitors.
It doesn't matter what the cost is relative to other cars. We still sold 50k in May-Aug, but we have no further reason to expect (or not to expect) that sales will stay constant in other months.
C. Fedora released a similar model in May of the previous year.
Irrelevant to whether sales will stay constant in other months for THIS car.
D. Sales of similar models of cars are typically much higher in the summer months than at any other time of the year.
Aha! If this is true, we might have reason to expect that May-Aug will have much higher sales than other months, so we might not hit our 120k target for the year. This addresses the unstated assumption of the rate of car buying being the same all year.
E. Freewheeler sales are important to meeting the sales goals of Fedora as a company.
We don't care why we care about the sales goals. This doesn't give us any further information about WHETHER we'll meet those goals.
The answer is D.
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education