Q12 - The more television children watch

[WaltGrace1983]

1/3 of children in the US watch TV for 5+ hours a day while less than 15% of US children understand advanced math
+
only 7% of children in South Korea watch TV for that long while 40% of them understand advanced math
-->
If the U.S. children want to do well in math then they must watch less TV.

This argument is overall assuming that everything is the same between South Korea and the U.S. What if South Korea spends all of its school day on math while the U.S. is more of a liberal arts type of education. Also, this argument is assuming that the same people who watch TV for 5+ hours a day are not the same people that excel in math. What if it just so happens that they do both? In addition, there is a really interesting shift from "understanding advanced measurement and geometric concepts" to "doing well in mathematics." It seems to me that this goes from a specific skill to a general knowledge (aka knowing a few mathetmatical concepts to knowing math in general). Perhaps an instructor can chime in on their thoughts regarding this? Is this something to be aware of? Am I being TOO nitpicky (if I am more nitpicky than the LSAT...oh boy...) These are all things that I am keeping myself aware of.

(A) Not necessary. It doesn't matter what they are interested in; it matters what they are good at. I hate British literature for example but I write some of my best papers on British lit.
(B) Similar to A in the sense that it doesn't matter if they are more or less disciplined. It all comes down to what they are good at and how much TV they watch
(C) Conclusion redundancy. This is just basically repeating the conclusion. However, notice too that it still has that little gap between "advanced measurement and geometry" and "mathematics" in general. Also, this doesn't really attack the gap between the premise and the conclusion. However, this is probably the most tempting of the answer choices, I hope someone elaborates on this one!
(D) Not necessary. While this looks like a pretty good answer, it gets fishy when it talks about the exact amount of television one should watch ("less than one hour a day"). The argument seems to talk about an inverse relationship between amount of TV watched and level of math comprehension. We don't need to assume that a child's ability will increase with less than 1 hour a day. What if that child watched only 15 minutes a day to begin with? This answer would be better if it sid that "a child's ability with increase with less TV watching" period.
(E) Correct. If it is substantially worse than we can attribute the poor math skills to the amount of TV watching? Not really no.

[ohthatpatrick]

Great explanation.

I'm a little troubled by the writing of this question, but it seems symptomatic of being so early (Test 3).

The first sentence looks like a fact, but ultimately I think LSAC intended it as a claim we could attack (since the conclusion says something similar).

In any modern test, I think the second sentence would start with "After all" / "To see this", etc., so that we would know that the first sentence is a subsidiary conclusion we can attack.

I think you were correct to notice the gap between adv meas / geom concepts vs. 'doing well in mathematics'.

We could have easily seen a correct answer say something like
(A) one's ability to understand advanced measurement and geometric concepts is relevant to whether one is doing well in mathematics

For (C), it doesn't literally say the same thing as the conclusion, but I agree that it feels close enough to think, "Hmmm, this doesn't seem to be addressing a gap or ruling out a potential objection".

(C) is focused on children's self-directed efforts to watch less television. It's saying that the kids who really want to do well in math will take it upon themselves to watch less TV.

The author doesn't have to assume that. He's free to make his conclusion while assuming that we will have to tear all kids kicking and screaming away from the television.

(not to nerd out here, but I'm not in love with the correct answer. If I say, "to win that tennis tournament, Ben is going to have to improve his serve", it doesn't weaken that claim at all to point out that his serve isn't the only problem: his backhand and net game are also struggling. Similarly, the fact that (E) points out a gap in instructional quality in the US vs. South Korea doesn't really affect the claim that excessive TV watching is hurting US students. More than one thing can concurrently be hurting US students. So as I said at the outset, the writing of this question is pretty loose by modern standards)

Nice work!

[WaltGrace1983]

I'm coming back to this question and, though I remember not understanding 100% what you meant when I wrote this initial explanation, I do now! Maybe the instruction could be substantially worse but instruction is not necessary to develop a solid understanding of mathematics. Maybe it is doing 5 hours of math homework a night that is sufficient to ensure one's success in math.