LR Question 4 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: An assumption made in the explanation offered…
QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption
CONCLUSION: Political shows are not bland and innocuous because of some political agenda.
REASONING: Television stations are driven by economic forces. They air shows that will appeal to large numbers of people.
ANALYSIS: Economic forces are a possible explanation but this argument is not rock-solid. Do people really want to watch bland and innocuous shows? And will people turn off all arguments they disagree with?
Questions four and five are rare in that both questions are necessary assumption questions.
___________
- If viewers could agree which parts were obnoxious then it would be even easier for stations to not air obnoxious programs.
- CORRECT. If no viewers would avoid viewing a show that they find obnoxious and disturbing, then it can’t be the case that TV stations avoid obnoxious shows because they’re afraid of losing viewers.
- This tells us that non-mainstream views are spread out across many options. If this were true, it would be hard to make TV shows that catered to those views – there wouldn’t be enough people to watch the shows.
- The argument didn’t say that only TV talk shows are affected by this analysis.
- It wouldn’t matter if the TV shows were different as long as they all were mainstream.
More Resources for Necessary Assumption Questions
- Negations Article: Learn about negations on the LSAT.
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- Negations Drill: Practice your negation skills.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: Learn conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Necessary Assumption questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers necessary assumption questions.
“CONCLUSION: Political shows are not bland and innocuous because of some political agenda.” maybe a typo? It should be “are bland and innocuous”.
I could perhaps have phrased this more clearly. The truth of the matter is: “TV shows’ political opinion is bland and innocuous, but this is not due to a political agenda.” My phrasing means the same thing, the not refers to the reason, not the actual state of the shows. They are indeed bland.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
When I go to PT 29, “LR II” (as stated), Q4 for a necessary assumption question, it is ‘the comprehension section. This should be LR IV (4) etc.
LR II means the second LR section, and not the second section of the test. LR II in this case means Section IV of the test as a whole.