Q18 - Teresa: If their goal is

[noah]

June 2008 LSAT answers
18. (C)
Question Type: Assumption
The conclusion of this argument is that studios should focus on making big-budget rather than small budget films. The reasoning: small budget-films never attract a mass audience. A counter-premise is that small-budgeted films are less expensive to make, however that is no guarantee (and, we can assume, does not override the audience issue). Teresa is assuming that having a mass audience is required. (C) refers to this assumption. If we negate it, saying that studios can maximize profits if its films don't attract a mass audience, then the argument falls apart, since those small-budget films could do quite well.
(A) It's unimportant that each big film attract a mass audience. We could have a dud big-budget film (did you see X-men Origins?) and it still could be wise to focus on such big-budget movies since small-budget one will never have a mass audience. Let’s see what happens when we negate this answer: Even if large films do not guarantee profits, the low production costs of small films (and the related low risk of unprofitability) still do not guarantee the highest profits. This last premise is used only to weaken the idea that the small budget can lead to profit since the risk of profitability is so low, it is not the idea upon which the conclusion is based.
(B) This is out of scope since the argument is about which general focus or business strategy will be most profitable. Nowhere does Teresa say that the studio should have an exclusive focus on one type of film
(D) Out of scope. Financial efficiency is irrelevant.
(E) Out of scope. Regardless of a film company's goal, Teresa's argument can be true.


#officialexplanation

[JorieB701]

So, to be clear, a counter-premise should not be considered as part of the core argument?

[ohthatpatrick]

That's correct.

An argument consists of a CONCLUSION and at least one SUPPORTING IDEA.

A counter-premise wouldn't count as a supporting idea. It would actually seem to OPPOSE the conclusion. So it's an ingredient name we use for describing parts of the stimulus (the paragraph we read), but it's not an ingredient we would typically list if we were outlining the author's argument.

Sometimes we'll bend that rule, just to keep a certain factor in mind. Like we might summarize an argument by saying something like

CONCLUSION: The Prius is better than the Insight.
SUPPORT: even though the Insight has better acceleration, the Prius has better gas efficiency and legroom.

Technically, there's no reason to have that italicized counterpremise there, but people might want to keep in mind the one benefit of the Insight that the author acknowledged, since it may lead to some weakening idea like, "What if acceleration is the #1 thing to consider when evaluating a car?!"

[Emmeline Ndongue]

I had no problem with all four incorrect answer choices, and I got the right one by eliminating these four but I just couldn't come up with AP rephrase answer even though I knew this was a "necessary assumption" question.
By negating C, I knew that if "none of the films by a film studios film were unable to attract mass audiences and it could still maximize profit", then small-budget films would've been able to maximize profit, and this sort of a different look on the conclusion, and we might no have to focus on big-budget film to reach our goal of maximizing profit.
It was when I saw the subtle difference presented by C that I found out the author's assumption. Is this way of tackling the question bad (unable to prephrase)? What can I do to make it easier for me to prephrase assumption questions?

[VendelaG465]

I drew this one out as so : maximize profit----> produce big-budget films & the contrapositive as - big budget films -----> - maximize profit . isn't C the opposite of that?

[ohthatpatrick]

(C) is talking about
maximize profits vs. not maximize profits
and
at least one film attracts mass audience vs. no films attract mass audience

(C) would be diagrammed as

No films attract mass audiences -> not maximize profits
or
Maximize profits -> at least one film attracts mass audiences.

If you were trying to represent this conditionally, you could say that the conclusion is (in part) saying:

CONC
max profits ----------------------------------------------------------------> ~small budget
or
small budget --------------------------------------------------------------> not max profits

PREM
small budget ----> No film attracts mass audience
choice (C):............No film attracts mass audience ----------> not max profits

[VendelaG465]

Okay and just to confirm how would I negate C? the "unless at least some" tripped me up a little. I started it as "A film studio will maximize its profits ...."

[ohthatpatrick]

My general suggestion would be to never try negating conditional statements. Most students don't do it right so they get themselves into trouble by doing so.

If you're doing Nec Assumption and an answer choice is written as a conditional statement, just ask yourself whether it matches the flow of the author's thinking (and also verify that the author didn't hedge her wording with qualifiers like "often" / "typically", etc. ... this sort of qualified wording wouldn't be strong enough to accuse the author of assuming a conditional).

For what it's worth, though,
NEGATING A CONDITIONAL = There is at least one counterexample

Students usually think that negating a conditional gives you a different conditional. This is never the case.

Negating "If A, then B" gives you "At least sometimes, A happens, but B does NOT happen"

Negating choice (C) would give us
"At least sometimes, a film that didn't attract a mass audience nevertheless made max profits"

[DevorahK415]

These answers feel convoluted because some of them are going into small-budget films even though the answers don't. I'm between A & C

Negating A: No big-budget film is guaranteed to attract mass audience.
Negating C: A film studio will maximize its profits if none of its films attracts mass audiences? To me, that breaks the argument and the only way to cross out A is the use of extreme language "guaranteed" for an NA, which is unnecessary.

Could someone confirm these negations?

Thanks.

[smiller]

Your negations are really, really close.

When using the Negation Test in a Necessary Assumption question, remember that there are two characteristics of a correct negation.

First, the original statement and the negation cannot both be true at the same time.

Second, the negation should go just far enough to make the original untrue. The negation does not need to be the polar opposite.

Your negation of choice (A) meets the first characteristic, which is often good enough. But if you want to fully understand (A), we need to match the second characteristic. So, the most accurate negation is, "some big-budget films are not guaranteed to attract a large audience."

The correct negation of choice (C) is, "if none of its films attract mass audiences then a film studio might still maximize its profits." Your negation of (C) was very close, but again, "will maximize profits" is the polar opposite.

In the case of choice (C) this doesn't make a huge difference. If the studio "might still maximize profits" that creates a problem for the argument. The Negation Test works whether we use the polar opposite or go "just far enough" with "might still maximize profits."

With choice (A) there is a difference. The correct negation doesn't actually hurt the argument. It's fine if some big-budget films don't attract a large audience. The premises tell us that small-budget films never do, so the conclusion might still hold up.

The good news here is that negating with the polar opposite is good enough in a large number of Necessary Assumption questions. You can use a broadsword instead of a scalpel. I might even say that's okay most of the time.

Consider the second characteristic in a case like this, where you try to negate two answer choices and both negations seem to hurt the argument. If you want to be sure of the correct answer, you'll want to be sure that your negations match the second characteristic that I described above.

[AnnaT620]

Could you give an example for negating an UNLESS statement - I'm not sure how you got to "At least sometimes, a film that didn't attract a mass audience nevertheless made max profits"? That statement would then destroy the argument because you would no longer have support for the conclusion that you should produce big budget films rather than small budget films?

I'm a bit confused on the Negation Test - how do you want the negated statement to break the argument - does it need to oppose the premises, or does it need to break the relationship between premise and conclusion?

Thanks so much!