#20 - Critic: The more a novel appeals to the general public

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thank you!

[medialaw111516]

Confused about why B is correct? I picked A because it was a justify, but I now see that the "no novel" phrase is way too strong to be supported by what is stated.

[endlessly160]

I think that the first sentence is ultimately a red herring that plays no part in solving the question. At first I thought that the lone variable "appeals to the general public" would need to appear in the assumption, considering it's only mentioned the one time, but it seems unnecessary after you diagram the premise and conclusion.

Premise: "However, since any serious (...)" =
serious novelist -> cares about lit. style =
(X) care about lit. style -> (X) serious novelist

Conclusion: "No serious novelist (...)" =
motivate prime $ -> (X) serious novelist

So seeing as how the premise and conclusion end on the same necessary condition, the justifying assuming simply needs to connect their sufficient conditions, hence:
motivate prime $ -> (X) care about lit. style
Which is the conditional put forth by answer choice B.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi medialaw and endlessly160,

Endlessly160 is correct in the above post, though I would've stated the conditional relationships using the contrapositives of what Endlessly160 identified. Here are the steps:

1. The "since" premise in the second sentence states the below conditional relationship:

Serious novelist Care about literary style.

2. The conclusion of the argument (which begins from the word "no" in the second to last line of the argument) states the below conditional relationship:

Serious novelist NOT motivated primarily by desire to make money.

3. The conditional relationship in answer choice B is the below:

Care about literary style NOT motivated primarily by desire to make money.

4. Notice that when we add answer choice B to the conditional relationship stated in the premise, we get:

Serious novelist Care about literary style NOT motivated primarily by desire to make money

That chain produces precisely what the author wants to conclude. Answer choice A cannot be correct, because it does not justify the portion of the conclusion that states, "motivated primarily by the desire to make money." That concept is missing from the premises in the stimulus, and it must be part of the correct answer in order to justify the conclusion.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[Jon Denning]

A student asked me about this question earlier, and in typing out a relatively comprehensive response it occurred to me that my reply might prove useful as a complement to Jeremy's excellent explanation above. So here goes!

The mechanics of this Justify question are actually fairly simple, or at least common enough that once you’ve seen this a few times it becomes easy enough to spot and attack.

Essentially what you get in this argument is a somewhat generic introduction—there’s a correlation between popular appeal and sales/money (which is a given, and the sort of thing the LSAT would consider a valid assumption based on common knowledge of economics)—followed by a pair of conditional statements that contain the conclusion:

1. Premise: Serious novelist Care about literary style
2. Conclusion: Serious novelist Not motivated primarily by desire to make money

Note: #2 exhibits the form “No one who...,” which is something that always translates as “Members of the group in question lack some quality/characteristic.” So, “No As are Bs,” is just A Not B, etc. That’s why I showed it the way I did, if anyone's unsure

So, we know our conclusion’s starting point—"Serious novelist”—gets us to “Care about literary style” because the premise told us that, but the author goes further and tries to get from that starting point (Serious novelist) to a new idea, “Not motivated primarily by desire to make money.” To connect those terms we just need the end of the premise—“Care about literary style”—to take us to the conclusion’s destination!

It would be like if I said:

Prem: A B
Conclusion: Thus, A C

How do I get that conclusion from that premise? Add another premise: B C. That would make a chain:

Prem: A B
New Prem (answer choice): B C
Conclusion (proven): A B C , thus A C

That’s all that happens in this argument with the addition of answer choice (B), which merely a new connection between the premise’s endpoint and the conclusion:

Prem: Serious novelist Care about literary style
New Prem (answer choice B): Care about literary style Not motivated primarily by desire to make money
Conclusion (proven): Serious novelist Not motivated primarily by desire to make money

As for the arrow or connection direction idea, the key thing to keep in mind is that you need to move from the premise to the conclusion’s end point, thus from “Care about literary style” to “Not motivated primarily by desire to make money,” and NEVER the other way around! Reversing that flow is a favorite trap, particularly in harder questions (I don’t see an answer that does it here but it’s worth watching out for). In short: anything that takes you from the conclusion and sends you elsewhere is wrong!

Again, they do this all the time, albeit sometimes directly as here, and other times with contrapositives, like “Motivated primarily by desire to make money Not care about literary style.” That’s a bit trickier, but the principle is the same.

Hope that helps!