#15 - Many popular novels have stylistic elements commonly

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thank you!

[juandresmc]

Hi PS!

I got this question correct, however I wanted to check my reasoning with you. After reading the stimulus and the question stem my prephase was that maybe there is some type of correlation between journalistic writing and the popularity of a novel, but not to the level of causation. However, when I got to the answer choices I was able to narrow it down to answer choices (A) and (D).

My reasoning for eliminating answer choice (A) was that the author did not established any type of conditional relationship in the stimulus so the mistaken reversal flaw contained in answer choice (A) could not be the correct answer (since flaw questions belong to the First Family of questions types). Are my prephase and reasoning correct?

Thank you very much!

Best regards,

Andrés

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Andres!

Your prephrase is where I was headed with the answer choices when I first read the stimulus, and your reasoning for getting rid of answer choice A is rock solid. I wouldn't change a word of that. The only thing I'd note is that in addition to correlation-causation in the stimulus, there's a "Numbers and Percents" component to the reasoning as well. The journalistic style "increases the chances" ("chances" being a percentage-based notion) that a novel will be popular, based on the fact that "many" novels (a numbers-based notion) have that style. So in addition to looking for causation-oriented answer choices, keep your eye on answers that could clarify the numbers-percents disconnect in the stimulus (like answer choice D, which talks about "how many" unsuccessful novels have been written in the journalistic style). You're doing great, so keep it up!

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[juandresmc]

Hi Jeremy!

Excellent, thanks for the advice, will take it into account the next time I encounter a similar situation.

Best regards,

Andrés

[KoenXin]

So just to confirm about answer choice D, the stimulus is using causal reasoning to suggest that using a journalistic writing style will increase the *chances* that a novel will be popular. Now, this sounds a bit similar to #10 on this section and you brought up in your comment that this flaw also contains a "numbers + percentages" issue with determining that since *many* popular novels have had this, that the conclusion follows. But we know that this isn't sufficient grounds to conclude it because they're only looking at one half of the equation in a sense.

[Paul Marsh]

Hi KoenXin - your take on this problem sounds good to me! "Many" really only means "more than one" in the eyes of the LSAT, so whenever an argument assumes that "many" means anything more than that, we want to look at it very carefully.

Nice work! If you have any specific questions about this one feel free to follow up below.

[mkloo11]

Hi all, sorry to revive this old thread. I fortunately got this question correct, but I just wanted to check my reasoning for eliminating C. I initially kept it as a contender with D because I thought that the causation flaw could be described as "fail[ing] to specify exactly what is required for a novel to become popular." But upon review, I'm realizing that it says "what is required for a novel to be considered popular" which means something else. Is that the right/important distinction?

If it had been saying what's required to be popular, then it could be the correct answer. But that isn't what it's saying; it's talking about the definition of popularity, which isn't contentious. Right?

Thank you!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi mkloo,

The difference between become popular and be considered popular doesn't matter here because neither is required for the argument. There's no change in meaning suggested between the premise about popularity and the conclusion about popularity. Whatever metric they use to determine popularity is consistent. Answer choice (C) is a great example of an answer choice that correctly describes the stimulus but isn't a flaw in the stimulus.

It's a common wrong answer in Flaw in the Reasoning questions because they are so so tempting. They describe what you saw! However, that doesn't make it a flaw.

Hope that helps!

[jk3530]

Hi,

I was able to understand that from the first two "some (many)" statements, the flaw isn't that there is confusion btw necessary/sufficient... I also understood that because it says "chance" this is abt a percentage/proportion. But I wasn't sure about answer choice D because it says "unsuccessful" novels when the stimulus talks about popularity. So do we just need to assume that if sth is popular it's successful and unsuccessful then not popular? Technically, a novel can be successful and not popular if you have diff criterion to measure that success..

[Dana D]

Hey JK,

This stimulus seems to use successful and popular as synonyms, although you are right in that there is ambiguity there. As a previous poster mentioned, Answer Choice (C) touches on this issue, however that is not the flaw in the argument. Even if the stimulus clearly equated that success = popularity, there would be a flaw in the argument here. Once you realize that, you can push past Answer choice (C) and keep looking.

Answer (D) hits on the real issue of the argument - even if many popular/successful novels have journalistic writing styles, that does not mean that writing in that style in and of itself will lead to a novel being popular/successful.