#20 - Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=14542)

The correct answer choice is (A)

This question stem asks whether an imported programming airtime allotment study would be
relevant to various possible questions provided as answer choices.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. The referenced study would allow one to
determine various nations’ access to imported cultural productions.

Answer choice (B): The study would not provide such information because it would only examine
the airtime schedule of the broadcasts in developing nations, not the specific viewing habits of the
residents therein.

Answer choice (C): A study of the airtime devoted to domestic versus imported programming would
not necessarily be conducive to an understanding of degree of influence.

Answer choice (D): A study of airtime devoted to imported programs would not offer insight into
relative audience sizes, so this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (E): Answering this question is the first task of the proposed study in the author’s
passage, but the study discussed in the question stem would not assist with this inquiry at all, so this
answer choice should be eliminated.

[Sdaoud17]

OKay this question throw me off , because I could not find any evidence to support A is right , so I picked E. Can you please Explain the best Approach to this question and if i had A Question like this what should I do . Because It was the hardest question Honestly for me ?


Thank you

[Luke Haqq]

The question asks you to suppose that the amount of air time for imported television programming is provided for a number of developing countries. If we know this, it certainly tells us something about the access to imported cultural productions in those nations. And this is what answer choice A asks. It says, "How does the access to imported cultural productions differ among these nations?" If we know how much airtime each country gives to these productions, as the question asks us to suppose, we can answer this question.

[Sdaoud17]

got it , Thank you

[Mozart]

Hello,

I just wanted to ask if there are any lines from the passage that would support A)?
Or would it be a better strategy to think about the big picture ideas (instead of specific lines) of the passage when approaching this question?


Thank you so much for your time and help!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Mozart,

That's a great question, and reveals a little something about the nature of this question. The consistent concern of the author in the passage is for empirical data that digs deeper into the level of influence that imported television programming has on a culture, for example: the size of audience attracted by the programming (line 20); the personal tastes of individual viewers (lines 23-25, plus paragraph 4); the culture's response to the programming (paragraph 3); the viewing habits of individuals, and the function of television programs in a culture (paragraph 2).

What the designers of the question want you to see is that the study in the question stem of question 20 (which only looks at amount of airtime allotted, but not at the effect of such time allotment on viewers, either as a culture or as individuals) is not helpful in getting at the level of influence of that programming. So, rather than finding passage support for answer choice A, we can safely eliminate answer choices B through E because they all deal with questions of influence (who's watching the programming, and what effect such programming has in the culture). Answer choice A is thus supported by negative inference.

Make sense?

Jeremy

[beeryslurs]

Hi.

I would definitely choose A if the question stem didn't say "given the information in the passage." A is just so obvious that you can arrive at it without any reference to the passage, and it does not seem to deal with the author's major concerns in the passage as much as the other answer choices do, so I eliminate it.

Is it possible that the "given the information in the passage" in the question stem is more like a trap?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi beery,

We are still using the information in the passage to support answer choice (A). We eliminate answer choices (B), (C), (D), and (E) because they are inconsistent with the information given in the passage. Without the passage, we wouldn't have the information needed to answer this question. Even though we can't support to a specific line that gives us answer choice (A), we can point to those lines for the other answer choices.

Hope that helps!
Rachael