- Fri Aug 18, 2017 5:24 pm
#38514
Hi Sarah!
Careful with your prephrase. For an assumption question, the answer doesn't "make" the argument true (that's a Justify the Conclusion standard). You are looking for a statement (not even necessarily the statement, as most arguments have multiple assumptions being made) that is required by the argument.
Here the author says that the most important objective for traditional newspapers was to avoid offending potential readers and for this reason they adopted the standard of objectivity. But why? That only makes sense if we assume that objectivity is less offensive than partisan reporting. This is what answer (D) gives us.
When doing the Assumption Negation Technique, the negation of answer (D) would actually be "Newspapers have not regarded objective reporting as less likely to offend..." Your negation is more of a polar opposite. Both versions would weaken the argument here, but you want to be careful that you are taking the logical opposite of the answer choice, not the polar opposite. There will be times where the polar opposite weakens, but the logical opposite doesn't (which would indicate an incorrect answer).
Hope that helps!
Eric Ockert
PowerScore LSAT/GMAT/SAT Instructor