#8 - Commentator: Most journalists describe their individual

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Main Point. The correct answer choice is (C)

This Commentator begins the statement in common LSAT fashion: “it is often concluded…” followed by an immediate refutation of the common conclusion. The main point is that there is not actually a liberal bias in media, and this conclusion is based on market considerations.

Answer choice (A): The argument is not that individual political orientation is unacceptable as evidence, but that there is stronger contrary evidence (that of media profit motivation).

Answer choice (B): This is a premise of the argument, not the conclusion.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice, and perfectly restates our prephrase above.

Answer choice (D): Like answer choice (B), this is a premise of the argument, not the conclusion, so this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (E): This is not the conclusion of the argument, but rather background information which precedes the author’s immediately disagreeing with this common notion.

[rameday]

Question 31 on page 1-85, why is A incorrect? I understand why C is correct but I am not entirely sure why A is an unacceptable answer as well.


A

[KelseyWoods]

Hi A,

Answer choice (A) is not the main conclusion because the argument is not that the individual political orientations of journalists is unacceptable evidence, it's that there is stronger contrary evidence (the motive of the media to make profits by targeting the broadest base possible). If the media did not need to target the broadest base possible to make profits, then the fact that most journalists describe themselves as liberal might indicate that the media has a liberal bias.

Does that clear it up?

Best,
Kelsey

[scharles35]

Okay so the main conclusion in this argument is that "...therefore face market pressures that tend to keep them impartial..." ?

Cause then i can see how (C) is correct cause i had originally pick (A) as well

[Robert Carroll]

s,

The main conclusion of this stimulus is "This is not the case." In other words, "It is not the case that there is a liberal bias in current journalism." The commentator's argument is a refutation of the argument in the first sentence, and the conclusion of that argument is that there is a liberal bias. The rest of the second sentence, introduced by the word "because", serves to give support for the conclusion already offered, so the rest of that sentence comprises premises for the conclusion that there is not a liberal bias in current journalism.

Robert Carroll

[avengingangel]

The stimulus says " and therefore face market pressures that tend to keep them impartial..."

I chose answer "Major media face significant market pressures." as my answer (per the stimulus' information). Howww could saying that current journalism does NOT have a liberal political bias be the correct answer, when the stimulus says "TENDS" ??

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, Avenging,

Let's discuss the process here.

When you're working the stimulus, you're asking yourself, is this a set of facts or is there a point here? So what's the point?

All that junk after "because" is just premises. So, ask yourself, "what is the author getting at?" Always, always, identify the main point or main conclusion if there is one. He's trying to say that even though all these journalists are bleeding hard liberals, current journalism does not actually have a liberal bias.

This follows the common LSAT format: "Some scientists claim eating chocolate cake actually helps you lose weight" Conclusion: Those scientists are smoking crack.

Don't miss the forest for the trees. Read the question stem. You're dealing with a Main Point question. Since you are dealing with a main point question, anticipate that the main conclusion will not be obvious.

When you are prephrasing, pick what you think best expresses the author's main point, then ask yourself two questions:

1) What evidence backs up this statement?

The main conclusion will always have some premises/facts backing it up.

2) So what? Is the author getting at something else?

If so, where she's going with her argument is the main conclusion. If not, you're done. You've found the main conclusion.

In this case you need to work more on the prephrasing. You're working backwards from the answers. That is a guaranteed way to get caught in traps. Work through the stimulus. Work on prephrasing. These are the keys to improvement on the LSAT.

[dest2001]

Hi! can you explain why D is incorrect? I got confused because, in the stimulus, there seemed to be two conclusions. One states that there is no liberal bias, and the other says that it would not be in the interest of the media to cater to one point of view. I didn't know which was the main conclusion.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi dest,

You are correct that there are two conclusions in the stimulus, which we refer to as "complex" arguments. This is actually very common in Main Point questions as this increases the question difficulty. While there are two conclusion, only one conclusion is the "Main" conclusion, that is, the ultimate point of the argument that everything else (including the other conclusion) supports.

Whenever you have more than one conclusion in an argument, you need to figure out which conclusion is the main conclusion and which is the supporting conclusion (also called a subsidiary conclusion or an intermediate conclusion). Often the easiest was to do this is to compare the two conclusions by reading them back-to-back (and then reversing the order) to see which way the logic flows.

For example, in this stimulus, the intermediate conclusion (newspapers, magazines, radio, and television) "face market pressures that tend to keep them impartial" supports the main conclusion that "this is not the case" (that there is a liberal bias in journalism). In other words, it is because they face these market pressures to be impartial that the journalists cannot be biased in their journalism. If you tried reversing the order, it doesn't make sense (i.e. the fact that there is not a liberal bias in journalism is not supporting the idea that market pressures keep journalists impartial). That logic is backwards.

Another important point to mention is that sentences can often contain both a conclusion and a premise. Answer D "major media must target the boards customer base possible in order to maximize profits" is actually a premise of the argument, which is why this answer is incorrect. (Notice that this statement, which appears at the very end of the stimulus, follows the word "since," which is a premise indicator.)

Last but not least, the main conclusion is usually not found at the end of the argument in a Main Point question because that is where most people expect the conclusion to be. Instead, the test makers usually try to "hide" the main conclusion in the beginning or middle of the argument to see if test takers can correctly follow the logic of the argument.

There is a detailed discussion of these topics in chapter two of "The PowerScore Logical Reasoning Bible," which you may find helpful.