#7 - Must Be True

[cgs174]

Hi! I see why C) is correct but not why D) is wrong.

In multiple places throughout the passage, beginning with the first line, the author highlights the lack of mainstream scholarship given to Tucker as well as his part of U.S. entertainment history. By writing about such an understudied thing, it seems as though the author is removing themselves from the mainstream scholarship, making it impossible, though this work, for them to engage in mainstream scholarship. When you write about something notable outside of the mainstream, you are not being a mainstream participant. Unless the author thinks that this one work can create a new mainstream (which seems unlikely if not inherently impossible that any single work could create mainstream scholarship), then I don't see how it would be possible for the author to be in the mainstream scholarship. Maybe there could be other work done by this author which is in the mainstream (though this seems like too big a step to make)?

While it is always dangerous in the LSAT to make inferences around the expectations of a person, this one seemed so solid to me.

[Adam Tyson]

What you are missing here, cgs174, is that the author is adding their work to the mainstream, supplying something that has, up until this study, been insufficiently studied. It's entirely possible that our author expects to be hailed as a hero and accepted into the mainstream now that they have contributed this very important work that expands our knowledge and understanding of the overall subject!

There's no indication that this author is some sort of rebel who is going against the grain, or that the mainstream has intentionally excluded this subject and will shun any scholar who attempts to study it. It seems much more likely that the author expects that their work will add to the total body of evidence on the general topic, expanding what is considered mainstream rather than remaining outside it. But the point is, we just can't know what they expect, because inferences about those expectations would have to be based on some clear indications in the text, and the author provides none.

To select that answer, we would need to see the author saying something like "this study is likely to be treated with disrespect, and will probably be dismissed by most scholars" or "I offer this study as a cry in the wilderness, not expecting to be heard by most but hoping that someone, some day, will find it useful." Okay, maybe not that dramatic, but you get the idea. That would be the kind of textual support we would need to infer something about the author's expectations regarding how they and their book will be received by the mainstream.

[DaveFromSpace]

It's pretty wild that this question amounts to a vocabulary test.

With my colloquial understanding of the word "preponderance", I assumed it just meant a good amount of something. Had no idea it could be as specific as >50% of something.

To me, 10 films was enough to count as a preponderance films. If Tucker had acted in just 19 films instead of 20, then these 10 films would have suddenly counted as a preponderance. If Tucker only acted in 3 films, but the author accessed 2, then this would also count as a preponderance. But because the denominator is too large, 10 films suddenly loses its preponderanceness.

Maybe process of elimination could have narrowed down the choices to (D), but with the time constraint and the need to re-read large parts of the passage to fully rule out other choices, I would have had to skip this question on the real test.

[DaveFromSpace]

This is what Chatgpt says about the word "preponderance":

The word "preponderance" generally means "greater in weight, power, or importance" and does not inherently mean "greater than 50%." However, in specific contexts, such as legal terminology, it is often used to mean "greater than 50%" or "more likely than not."

For example:
- In everyday use: "A preponderance of evidence" could simply mean that there is more evidence supporting one side than another, without requiring a strict numerical threshold.
- In legal contexts: In civil cases, the "preponderance of the evidence" standard typically means that the evidence makes it more likely than not (i.e., greater than 50% probability) that a claim is true.

So while "preponderance" can imply a majority in some contexts, it doesn't always equate to "greater than 50%" unless specified.