LSAT 139 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q17

LR Question 17 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Politician: A major social problem is children hurting…

QUESTION TYPE: Weaken

CONCLUSION: TV causes children to be violent to other children.

REASONING: Children who watched a program were violent against a doll. Children who didn’t watch a program were not as violent.

ANALYSIS: Pay attention anytime the question switches terms. The conclusion was that children will be violent to each other. The evidence is that they’ll be violent to dolls.

Dolls are not children. Maybe TV can cause kids to be violent to objects but not to other humans.

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1. We would expect some children to protest the violence. Not everyone hates poor Bobo the clown. But it’s still true that children who watched TV were more likely to punch the doll.
2. This is just one child. Maybe he’s unusually violent. We care about the effects TV has on all the children, on average. And this child might have been even more violent if he had watched the program.
3. CORRECT. This shows that TV only causes children to be violent towards dolls. They’re not violent towards other children, which is what we care about.
4. Children are copycats. It’s not surprising that some of them imitated the violent children. But it’s still true that children were more likely to punch the doll after seeing the program.
5. This is irrelevant. The only important point is that children who watched the program were more likely to punch the doll.