Q12 - The total number of

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Inference (most supported)

Stimulus Breakdown:

- Since TV became available, the number of books published annually has quadrupled.
- In early days, rate of new books selling went way up -- it's still increasing but not as rapidly.
- Recently, library circulation has been the same or lower.

Answer Anticipation:
Inference questions want us to combine ideas to derive some inference or gist. We usually use Causal or Comparison/Contrast language in Most Supported questions. Can we speculate that the advent of TV had some causal influence on the rising popularity of books? Maybe, but that's pretty speculative. Can we figure out a when retail sales are still surging, while library circulation is stable or declining? Not really, unless we just speculate some reason. It's tough to derive a safe inference here, so we should just be wary of extreme claims and pick whichever answer is most provable.

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) 3 problems: It goes against the gist (TV was followed by an INCREASE in book sales). It's overconfidently causal: TV brought about a reduction of reading. It's also making a messy term shift from "number of books sold" to "per capita reading".

(B) Strong: "usually". We only have one example. It's not clear that TV had any direct causal effect on library circulation, but we certainly don't have enough ammunition to generalize that this is USUALLY the case.

(C) Opposite. The annual sales of books is STILL increasing. It's not increasing as drastically as before, but each new year bring with it MORE new titles sold than the previous year.

(D) Yes! Super safe language! To prove that "X does not always cause Y", you only need ONE example where X happened, but Y didn't. We have that: the availabilty of TV happened, and the annual number of book titles published did NOT decline.

(E) Overconfidently causal. If (D) didn't exist, then maybe we would resort to picking this out of lack of a more supported alternative. But we can PROVE that (D) is true. We can only speculate whether (E) is true.

Takeaway/Pattern: Just because X happened and Y followed doesn't mean that X caused Y. When LSAT wants us to know that there was a causal influence, it will usually use causal bridge wording such as, "X happened, which led to Y"; "X happened. Because of this, Y happened"; "X happened, and this made possible Y happening." Without that sort of causal wording, be very careful about speculating a causal relationship between two things. Only pick that answer if nothing else is easier to support/prove. Correct answers on Inference often have wishy-washy safe wording like "not all", "need not", "does not always", "not necessarily".

#officialexplanation

[mrudula_2005]

Hi!

I have a question regarding incorrect answer choice (C) - would it be correct if it had said "Book publishers in North America now sell more copies per title than they sold in the early days of television" ? Since the second sentence of the stimulus says "Retail sales of new titles, as measured in copies, increased rapidly in the early days of television, though the rate of increase has slowed in recent years" - the rate of increase slowing implying that there IS an increase, and therefore higher retail sales than in the early days of television.

Or can we not infer even this altered version of (C) because "retail sales" as mentioned in the stimulus and "book publisher sales" as mentioned in (C) are not one in the same - for ex, while retail sales of copies per title may have been on the increase since early T.V. days, for some reason the book publishers are selling less than they did in the early days of T.V. but it's just that what they do sell to the retailers now is increasingly more successful. Is that kind of hypothetical enough to prevent me from inferring my altered version of (C)?

also - would my version of (C) be off on a simpler level just because it talks about "fewer copies per title" while the stimulus talks about copies per "new title"?!

Thanks!!!

[noah]

Your altered version of (C) would primarily be incorrect because even if we knew that more books were sold, we wouldn't know that more books per title were sold (i.e. how many copies of each book).

Plus, the stimulus tells us about the sales of new titles, while (C) - including your genetically modified (C) - broadens that to all book sales (per title).

The other reasons you mention are also good reasons to knock out that hypothetical.

[cimani.w]

Why can't the answer be c?

[bbirdwell]

Because we cannot prove that it is true.

Here's what we know:
1. Total # of books published (not necessarily sold) has quadrupled since tv began

2. sales of new titles increased in the early days of tv, and then the rate of increase decreased

We cannot prove (C) for several reasons. First of all, (C) pertains to sales of all titles, and we only have evidence for sales of NEW titles. Secondly, we simply don't know if this is true -- in fact, some the evidence given suggests exactly the opposite by saying that the rate of sales has continued to increase, it's just not increasing as much anymore.

Actually, though, we'd have to know the % increase in titles sold to make a comparison to the amount of titles published, and we don't have this information.

See what I mean?

[jamiejames]

Why is the answer D?

[ivanau12]

I can only arrive to D by the process of elimination. I don't think it's necessarily most strongly supported by the info above as much as A, B, C or E aren't supported at all by the prompt.

(A), (B), (E) - we are told 3 independent events, but we do not know whether any of them have caused the other events. By using "brought", brings", "expanded" etc. we're implying that television led to another event but the prompt says nothing about that.

(C) Per the responses above, total titles / new titles mismatch, on top of other reasons makes this a faulty choice.

(D) is left. However, I still have a problem with the answer - for the same reason we can't derive causations for A/B/E, we aren't given information to known whether it does or does not cause a decline in # of book titles.

Would appreciate additional thoughts from anyone on this - thanks!

[kevin]

I do not understand how answer choice D is correct either. The concept of "the availability of television" in the answer seems to be an immediate red flag since there is nothing in the passage about how available television was; just that it became available at the same time books quadrupled. Just because it states that boks published annually in North America quadrupled since television first became available, does not mean the degree of television's availability is relevant....

The wording of answer choice D would also imply that the availability of television SOMETIMES causes a decline in the annual # of book titles published or in the # of books sold. I do not see how the passes infers that the availability of television is a sufficient enough condition for any change. All I see is that certain events regarding books happened at the same time when the television was introduced.

[jcarloserna]

Can anyone explain to me why D is the answer? Thanks!

[sumukh09]

Why can't E be supported? A rapid increase in retail sales of new titles corresponds to an expansion in the market for books in North America, also this increase in sales followed the introduction of television as stated in the stimulus.

Further, here's how I find support for E:

"The introduction of television (Answer choice E)" = "television became first available"/"early days of television (stimulus)"

"Expanded the market for books in North America (Answer choice E)" = "total number of book titles published annually in North American quadrupled (stimulus)"/"Retail sales increased rapidly (stimulus)"

Therefore E is supported -- or so I thought.

[rinagoldfield]

First let’s look at what we know here. The stimulus gives us three major pieces of information:

1. Since television began, the number of book titles published annually has quadrupled in North America.
2. Since television began, the sales of new books has increased rapidly.
3. Since television began, library circulation has remained flat or decreased.

Can anyone explain to me why D is the answer? Thanks!

For (D) to be supported, we need to know that TV does not always cause a decline in the annual number of book titles published OR in the number of books sold.

Our first piece of information tells us that the number of book titles published annually massively increased after TV first became available in North America. So, it can’t be true that TV always causes a decline in the number of book titles published"”North America stands as a counterexample to that claim.

Now, it could be true that TV always causes a decline in the "number of books sold," which is the second part of (D). We only know that sales of new titles increased after TV became available. This increase could have been offset by a decrease in sales of old titles, in which case the overall number of books sales would have remained stagnant or decreased.

However, we only need to know that TV does not always cause a decline in 1 of the 2 areas described by (D). And we know with absolute certainty that the availability of TV doesn’t always cause a decline in the number of book titles published"”check the first sentence of the stimulus for proof.

Why can't E be supported? A rapid increase in retail sales of new titles corresponds to an expansion in the market for books in North America, also this increase in sales followed the introduction of television as stated in the stimulus.

(E) is unsupported for a couple of reasons. First of all, the "market for books" describes the book buyers. Who are they? Is one rich mogul buying all of these new books? Or perhaps tweens and police officers have suddenly gotten really into buying new books? The stimulus doesn’t tell us anything about the book "market," so we can’t make an inferences about it.

Also, note that we don’t actually know whether or not overall books sales have increased in North America since television became available. We know that the number of titles has increased, but that doesn’t translate to sales. We also know that the number of new books sold has increased, but what about the number of old books sold?

Does this make sense?

[iridium77]

With regard to eliminating E), and to proving D), nowhere in the stimulus does it explicitly state there is a cause/effect relationship between the advent of the TV age, and any increase in book sales/publishing...or that it affects the book industry in any way shape or form...the stimulus merely states that these two events occurred at the same time.

So to say as does E) that the introduction of television expanded the book market is beyond the scope of the stimulus.

D), on the other hand makes the extremely safe claim that the availability of TV does not always cause a decline in any aspect of the book industry...

make sense?

[evelynz]

I have a question regarding the last piece of information in (D), i.e., the number of books sold. The only part in the argument that talks about sales of the number of books, rather than book titles, is "Retail sales of new titles, as measured in copies, increased ..." From this, it is safe to infer that the number of books with new titles has been increasing. But I am not sure if we can infer the number of all books, including both new and old titles, has not decreased, which seems to be required for (D) to be true.

Please let me know if I misunderstood either the argument or the answer choice.

Thanks!

[amil91]

I have a question regarding the last piece of information in (D), i.e., the number of books sold. The only part in the argument that talks about sales of the number of books, rather than book titles, is "Retail sales of new titles, as measured in copies, increased ..." From this, it is safe to infer that the number of books with new titles has been increasing. But I am not sure if we can infer the number of all books, including both new and old titles, has not decreased, which seems to be required for (D) to be true.

Please let me know if I misunderstood either the argument or the answer choice.

Thanks!

D is a conditional statement where the necessary side has 2 options, let's call them B or C. So given the sufficient side, let's call it A, for the logic to told hold at least one of B or C needs to be true, but both don't have to be, both could be true.

[mitrakhanom1]

Rinagoldfield wrote:

"First let’s look at what we know here. The stimulus gives us three major pieces of information:

1. Since television began, the number of book titles published annually has quadrupled in North America.
2. Since television began, the sales of new books has increased rapidly.
3. Since television began, library circulation has remained flat or decreased."

I was unaware that "since television began" was something we needed to keep in mind for each statement. How would I have know otherwise since it didn't come to me? So, am I to assume that if the sentences do not include the progression of time in them we are still dealing with the same time period "since television first became available" for each sentence?

I assumed that each following sentence went along with the natural progression of time. Meaning, as time goes on the sales of the number of book titles decreases. So if over the years the number of books being sold goes down I argued answer choice E is correct. I thought since the introduction of television expanded the market for books the demand for those books declined. If more locations sell books e.g. ebay, book stores, coffee shops, etc. than before then the saturation in the market leads to fewer people buying books relative to the number of books available for purchase. Simply there is an increase in copies of books and the number being bought is decreasing. I guess I was inferring too much?

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting, mitrakhanom1! Let's tackle your question in a few pieces:

Rinagoldfield wrote:

"First let’s look at what we know here. The stimulus gives us three major pieces of information:

1. Since television began, the number of book titles published annually has quadrupled in North America.
2. Since television began, the sales of new books has increased rapidly.
3. Since television began, library circulation has remained flat or decreased."

I was unaware that "since television began" was something we needed to keep in mind for each statement. How would I have know otherwise since it didn't come to me? So, am I to assume that if the sentences do not include the progression of time in them we are still dealing with the same time period "since television first became available" for each sentence?

It's really not that each sentence implicitly starts with "since tv began", but rather that everything else we're talking about is clearly after TV began, just going by what's clearly stated in each sentence. The second sentence tells us that "in the early days of TV", i.e., right after TV began, book sales increased rapidly at first, then the increase slowed recently. The final sentence talks about library circulation, and it says "in recent years". Common sense tells us that "recent years" would be way after TV began.

You're given time markers in every sentence, it's just a matter of noticing them.

I assumed that each following sentence went along with the natural progression of time. Meaning, as time goes on the sales of the number of book titles decreases.

I'm not sure where you're getting this information. The second sentence tells us that right after TV, sales of new titles increased rapidly. It also tells us that the rate of increase in sales has slowed in recent years, but that does not mean that sales have decreased. They are still increasining, but not as "rapidly" as before.

So if over the years the number of books being sold goes down I argued answer choice E is correct. I thought since the introduction of television expanded the market for books the demand for those books declined. If more locations sell books e.g. ebay, book stores, coffee shops, etc. than before then the saturation in the market leads to fewer people buying books relative to the number of books available for purchase. Simply there is an increase in copies of books and the number being bought is decreasing. I guess I was inferring too much?

You're making a ton of assumptions in this train of thought. First, even if the sales of books were decreasing (as I said above, it's actually still increasing), that would be a description of the absolute number of sales. If you describe that as "demand declining", you're still describing the absolute demand for the books - the actual number of books that people want to buy, total.

Even if this were true, I don't see how that relates to "the market for books". Declining demand does not prove, or even suggest that the market is expanded - demand could decline for zillions of reasons.

Also, even if we knew the market were increased, that wouldn't prove declined demand, which seems to be what you're trying to do. If you're going to define declining demand as "fewer people buying books relative to the number of books available", then now you're using demand as proportional concept - what percent of the available books are bought. But above, you were looking at demand as if it were an absolute number, because you thought book sales were declining.

All of this is unnecessary, though, and terribly confusing! The facts are that after TV was introduced, book sales increased. And I have no idea how this relates to 'the market for books'!

Now, one might argue that increased sales is, by definition, an "increased market" for books, though, and that wouldn't be patently unreasonable. However, as iridium77 points out above, even if that's true, we have no support for the idea that TV caused that market expansion. (E) points to a cause-effect relationship between TV and the 'expanded market', and we have zero support for that.

Please let me know if this helped to clear up a few things!

[mswang7]

A. We don't have any information of per capita reading and cannot make the leap from library circulation to per capita reading
B. Usually is too strong - we only know of this one incidence.
C. This makes a jump from retail sales to book publishers. Someone check me on this - if the answer said "Retailers in NA now sell fewer copies per title than in early days of TV" this could have been a correct answer
D. This is true and very weak language
E. This is a pretty broad generalization although I initially picked this answer. There is more support for D than E

[Laura Damone]

Nailed it!