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- Fri Jan 01, 2021 3:00 pm
#101854
Complete Question Explanation
Weaken. The correct answer choice is (C).
The stimulus begins with a causal conclusion that the rise of book megastores in the 1990s (caused) an increase in sales of best-sellers, but a decrease in sales of less commercial, more literary books. The support given for this conclusion is that best-selling hardcover titles accounted for about 7 percent of all hardcover sales in 1986, but accounted for nearly double that percentage by 1996. The argument also explains how the megastores can offer better discounts than independent bookstores and can offer their biggest discounts on best-selling hardcovers, which gives the megastores an incentive for focusing on the best-selling hardbacks.
This argument involves both casual reasoning and the concept of numbers and percentages. These two concepts often overlap, as a causal argument is often given to explain a change in statistics.
The argument has two immediate problems with it (beyond the usual problems that causal arguments have.)
First, the argument's conclusion is referring to the raw number of sales but the premises are only discussing the percentages of sales. This is a classic numbers/percentages error that comes up on the LSAT often. Even if the best-selling hardcover titles went from 7% of the total hardcover market to nearly 14% over that time period, that does not mean that the actual, raw number of best-selling titles sold went up during that time period. The reason that we do not know that the raw number increased is that we do know what happened to the total market. For example, if there had been a huge reduction in the total number of books sold during that time (possibly due to a recession, or the popularity of some other activity/entertainment, etc.), then it is still possible for there to have been less best-selling hardcovers actually sold while still being a higher percentage of of the market. In other words, the best-sellers could make up a bigger slice of the pie, but the overall pie itself had gotten much smaller.
The second problem with the argument is that the data given in the premises only concerns hardcover books, but the conclusion of the argument (by failing to specify hardcovers) is referring to all books, not just hardcovers.
Immediately, we should be wondering about what happened with non-hardcovers, i.e. paperbacks?
This is a weaken question and the correct answer will likely address at least one of these problems.
Answer choice (A): If anything, this answer would help the argument rather than weaken it. If bookstore customers are more likely to buy a book that they've seen on the best-seller list, then megastores (which are obviously a type of bookstore) would support an increase in best-selling books.
Answer choice (B): Like Answer A, this answer links bookstore customers to buying best-sellers, which would possibly strengthen the argument rather than weaken it.
Answer choice (C): This the correct answer choice. Answer C weakens the conclusion (specifically the second part of the conclusion about megastores causing a decrease in sales of less commercial, more literary books) by showing that these types books would not have been included/reflected in the hardcover market mentioned in the argument. Since we have absolutely no information about the sales of paperbacks in this argument, it is completely possible that these types of books have been having increasing sales in paperback.
Answer choice (D): This answer refers to more titles in print rather than to more actual books sold. Since we still don't know whether the actual total number of books sold has gone up, down, or stayed the same, this answer has no effect on the argument.
Answer choice (E): This answer can be tempting because it is easy to think that the less commercial, more literary books being sold at independent books rather than the megastores is an alternate cause for what is happening in the argument. In other words, the literary books are just being sold at independent stores and that's why they aren't being counted in the sales figures. (This answer also may make intuitive sense in the "real world" as many independent bookstores often do carry more literary titles rather than just best-sellers.) The problem is that, without knowing the sales data of the independent bookstores compared to the megastores, it is still completely feasible for the megastores to be decreasing the overall sales of literary books if more people are now going to the megastores instead of the independent bookstores, for example.
Weaken. The correct answer choice is (C).
The stimulus begins with a causal conclusion that the rise of book megastores in the 1990s (caused) an increase in sales of best-sellers, but a decrease in sales of less commercial, more literary books. The support given for this conclusion is that best-selling hardcover titles accounted for about 7 percent of all hardcover sales in 1986, but accounted for nearly double that percentage by 1996. The argument also explains how the megastores can offer better discounts than independent bookstores and can offer their biggest discounts on best-selling hardcovers, which gives the megastores an incentive for focusing on the best-selling hardbacks.
This argument involves both casual reasoning and the concept of numbers and percentages. These two concepts often overlap, as a causal argument is often given to explain a change in statistics.
The argument has two immediate problems with it (beyond the usual problems that causal arguments have.)
First, the argument's conclusion is referring to the raw number of sales but the premises are only discussing the percentages of sales. This is a classic numbers/percentages error that comes up on the LSAT often. Even if the best-selling hardcover titles went from 7% of the total hardcover market to nearly 14% over that time period, that does not mean that the actual, raw number of best-selling titles sold went up during that time period. The reason that we do not know that the raw number increased is that we do know what happened to the total market. For example, if there had been a huge reduction in the total number of books sold during that time (possibly due to a recession, or the popularity of some other activity/entertainment, etc.), then it is still possible for there to have been less best-selling hardcovers actually sold while still being a higher percentage of of the market. In other words, the best-sellers could make up a bigger slice of the pie, but the overall pie itself had gotten much smaller.
The second problem with the argument is that the data given in the premises only concerns hardcover books, but the conclusion of the argument (by failing to specify hardcovers) is referring to all books, not just hardcovers.
Immediately, we should be wondering about what happened with non-hardcovers, i.e. paperbacks?
This is a weaken question and the correct answer will likely address at least one of these problems.
Answer choice (A): If anything, this answer would help the argument rather than weaken it. If bookstore customers are more likely to buy a book that they've seen on the best-seller list, then megastores (which are obviously a type of bookstore) would support an increase in best-selling books.
Answer choice (B): Like Answer A, this answer links bookstore customers to buying best-sellers, which would possibly strengthen the argument rather than weaken it.
Answer choice (C): This the correct answer choice. Answer C weakens the conclusion (specifically the second part of the conclusion about megastores causing a decrease in sales of less commercial, more literary books) by showing that these types books would not have been included/reflected in the hardcover market mentioned in the argument. Since we have absolutely no information about the sales of paperbacks in this argument, it is completely possible that these types of books have been having increasing sales in paperback.
Answer choice (D): This answer refers to more titles in print rather than to more actual books sold. Since we still don't know whether the actual total number of books sold has gone up, down, or stayed the same, this answer has no effect on the argument.
Answer choice (E): This answer can be tempting because it is easy to think that the less commercial, more literary books being sold at independent books rather than the megastores is an alternate cause for what is happening in the argument. In other words, the literary books are just being sold at independent stores and that's why they aren't being counted in the sales figures. (This answer also may make intuitive sense in the "real world" as many independent bookstores often do carry more literary titles rather than just best-sellers.) The problem is that, without knowing the sales data of the independent bookstores compared to the megastores, it is still completely feasible for the megastores to be decreasing the overall sales of literary books if more people are now going to the megastores instead of the independent bookstores, for example.
