Q11 - Every week, the programming office

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Can you please explain each answer choice? Why is B right?

[bbirdwell]

First, let's analyze the argument core.

Conclusion: Continue the movie review program

Premises:
1 Received 10 letters with unfavorable comments
2 assumed that if some did not like it, others did


This question has been given away in the stimulus! They TOLD us what the director assumed. THIS is the flaw! Just because 10 letters arrived that were "against" the program does NOT mean that other people must be "for" it.

(A) out of scope
(B) This is exactly the mistake he made, as described above.
(C) There was no discrepancy in the letters "for" and "against" the movie review program. The "for" letters were about another program.
(D) out of scope
(E) way out of scope

[WaltGrace1983]

I continue to be baffled by the older LSAT questions - very frustrating.

I got the answer correct but I cannot understand WHY lsac would make THIS answer correct. Isn't it our job to get at the flaw between the premises and the conclusion? This correct answer just seems to attack the premises. Am I right to think this?

I had the same premises and conclusion that you did above. Could it be the case that the argument is actually "some listeners did not like the segment" and therefore "there must be other listeners who did." This makes a bit more sense but still...

[christine.defenbaugh]

I continue to be baffled by the older LSAT questions - very frustrating.

I got the answer correct but I cannot understand WHY lsac would make THIS answer correct. Isn't it our job to get at the flaw between the premises and the conclusion? This correct answer just seems to attack the premises. Am I right to think this?

I had the same premises and conclusion that you did above. Could it be the case that the argument is actually "some listeners did not like the segment" and therefore "there must be other listeners who did." This makes a bit more sense but still...

I would absolutely chalk the strangeness of the structure and wording here to the fact that it's an early PrepTest.

I see the core of this slightly differently than my colleague:

PREMISE: Some people didn't like the movie review segment.
CONCLUSION: So some people must have liked it.

I think you're right that if they were writing this same question now, you would see the same premise, then something like "as a result, the director concluded there must be some people that like the movie review." The difference here is that they explicitly give you the connective tissue "he assumed that if (premise), then (conclusion)." The odd structure doesn't change what his conclusion is - that some people must have liked it.

The argument is explicitly telling you the (bad) assumption that lead the director to his conclusion that some people must have liked it. They simply want you to identify that that particular assumption is a not okay (ever).

As a result, I wouldn't characterize this as attacking the premise. It calls out the assumption as an error, it's just weird in that the assumption was stated. (This is, incidentally, the only way an assumption could ever be 'stated' - the author is telling us someone else's assumption.)

In a modern LSAT, they'd be far more likely to test the implications of 'some' in an inference question instead (where the stimulus gives you the 'some', and an incorrect answer leaps to 'some not').

Does that help a bit?