Q4 - Political opinion and analysis

[ebrickm2]

This question is an assumption question, and a necessary one at that. That it, an answer choice that is sufficiently correct would thus be incorrect.

The term of interest in answering this question is "outside the mainstream", the correct answer choice, B, mentions "controversial and disturbing". Granted, all of the options are clearly wrong for obvious reasons, this isn't a problem for me, what I am concerned with is that this answer choice isn't necessarily correct, which it would need to be based on the requirements of this question.

In order to determine if something is "outside the mainstream", must it be "controversial and disturbing"? Wouldn't one of these elements be sufficient, and doesn't the dual presence indicate something that isn't exactly necessary?

On a less complicated note, can one readily assume based on educated understandings, which is an element allowed on the LSAT, that "controversial and disturbing" is "outside the mainstream"?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

You really are thinking about this... That's good.

I also like how confident you are that you know not to second guess yourself early in the section. It's really important for high performers not take the same skills that would be useful at say question 17 and apply them at question 4. Good work.

As to your comment

In order to determine if something is "outside the mainstream", must it be "controversial and disturbing"? Wouldn't one of these elements be sufficient, and doesn't the dual presence indicate something that isn't exactly necessary?

You don't need to set up the question this way. It's not whether "controversial and disturbing" are necessary, but whether they're sufficient. Which gets at your next question.

On a less complicated note, can one readily assume based on educated understandings, which is an element allowed on the LSAT, that "controversial and disturbing" is "outside the mainstream"?

I think it's fair to give the test writer this flexibility in language. One aspect of easing up earlier in the section is being looser with language. Give them this flexibility here in question 4, but not later in the section, say at question 23.

[ECMH05]

I had trouble with this question. When an assumption question does not explicitly distinguish whether it is asking for a sufficient or necessary condition, is it safe to assume that one must look for a necessary condition answer choice? In other words, is a necessary assumption the "default" assumption question?

I guess the aspect of B that threw me off was that "there are television viewers" did not include a quantity indicator and I read it as "some" television viewers.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

This is indeed a Necessary Assumption and "yes!" when the question stem does not specify whether it is a Sufficient Assumption or a Necessary Assumption, the latter is the default.

Also, for answer choice (B), the "weakness" of the answer choice is actually a positive characteristic. "There are television viewers" does translate as "there are some television viewers." And this does need to be assumed.

[theanswer21324]

I'm having some trouble figuring this question out. Could someone break down the correct and wrong answer choices?

To me, the core looks like: "Attempt to capture the largest possible share (premise) --> As a result, Air shows that appeal to large numbers of people (intermediate conclusion) --> Therefore, political opinions are bland and innocuous (main conclusion)"

Seems like a big jump from the intermediate conclusion to the main conclusion.

When I negate (B), I get: "there are NO vieweres who might refuse to watch TV talk shows that they know would be controversial and disturbing." I'm not really sure how this fits into any part of the argument.

Also, what is the difference in terms of what question 4 and 5 are asking? It looks like the questions are worded in almost the same way so I had trouble figuring out how they were different (were they just asking for 2 different assumptions?)

Thanks

[WaltGrace1983]

I'm having some trouble figuring this question out. Could someone break down the correct and wrong answer choices?

(Must attempt to capture largest possible share of TV audience
→)
TV shows must attempt to capture the largest audience and appeal to the largest number of people
→
Political opinions/analyses air on TV are bland and innocuous

The main gap here is between "largest audience" and "bland and innocuous." The argument is assuming that what is appealing to the largest audience are analyses that are "bland and innocuous." However, the argument is not asking about this assumption (I think it comes up in Q5 if I remember correctly).

The argument is asking about another assumption. This assumption would be the gap between "appealing" to the largest number of people and what "capturing the largest possible share of the audience." This is more along the lines of looking at the argument as a Premise→Intermediate Conclusion→Conclusion, as I have shown above. So the argument is assuming that people watch only what they find appealing! In other words, if they don't find it appealing, they won't watch it. Why is this a necessary assumption? This is a necessary assumption because if people did watch shows that they don't find appealing, then there would be no reason to believe that this technique still wouldn't capture the largest share of the audience.

This is why (B) is correct. If we negate it, we get this: "There aren't any TV viewers who would refuse to watch something that is controversial and disturbing." With this assumption in place, does it make sense to conclude that appealing to the largest number of people is the only way to capture the largest possible share of the audience? Nope. They could show whatever they want! People will still watch.

(A) It doesn't matter what they can/cannot agree on

(C) This is assuming something about all TV viewers. Is it necessary that they all hold an opinion outside of the mainstream? No. If one person holds opinions only within the mainstream that doesn't change anything about capturing the "largest possible share" of people.

(D) "Economic forces" is completely out of scope.

(E) This looked good until we get to "most" respects. They must be similiar in "some" respect - that they all show programs that appeal to large numbers of people - but they don't have to be similar in MOST respects.

[YudeS218]

I'm having some trouble figuring this question out. Could someone break down the correct and wrong answer choices?

(Must attempt to capture largest possible share of TV audience
→)
TV shows must attempt to capture the largest audience and appeal to the largest number of people
→
Political opinions/analyses air on TV are bland and innocuous


This is why (B) is correct. If we negate it, we get this: "There aren't any TV viewers who would refuse to watch something that is controversial and disturbing." With this assumption in place, does it make sense to conclude that appealing to the largest number of people is the only way to capture the largest possible share of the audience? Nope. They could show whatever they want! People will still watch.
.

If we negate B, we can see that there are television viewers who might not refuse to watch talk shows outside the mainstream.
But they just don't refuse to do so, don' mean that they intended to do so. For instance I don't refuse to work on LSAT but I still will not work on LSAT when there are something more interesting than preparing LSAT (which means everything) (just kidding
Anyway, views don't refuse to watch that kind of talk show doesn't exclude the possibility that they don't watch that talk show at all, therefore negate B don't necessarily harm the argument, therefore B shouldn't be the right answer.