LSAT 117 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q3

LR Question 3 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Beginning in the 1950s, popular music was revolutionized …

QUESTION TYPE: Most Strongly Supported

FACTS:

1. The electrification of music allowed musicians to increase the volume of their music.
2. Average musicians per band went down.
3. Total professional musicians went up.

ANALYSIS: This is kind of a math problem. We need to figure out how average musicians per band decreased, but the total professional musicians increased.

One possibility is that there’s more solo musicians now. Maybe before there were 10 bands with 5 musicians each, so there were 50 musicians. But now there’s 10 bands with 3 musicians each, and also 50 new solo musicians, so there’s 80 musicians.

Another possibility is that there were more bands overall. Let’s say again:

• Before: 10 bands x 5 musicians each = 50 musicians
• Now: 20 bands x 3 musicians each = 60 musicians

Even though each band is smaller, the total number of musicians increases because there are more bands.

___________

1. The stimulus is only about professional musicians. It says nothing about amateur musicians.
2. The stimulus says electrification changed pop music. It doesn’t say most musicians play both electric and nonelectric instruments.
3. The average number of musicians per band decreased. That doesn’t necessarily mean no individual band got bigger, but the stimulus gives us no reason to infer that some bands increased in size.
4. CORRECT. If the total number of professional musicians increased while the average number of musicians per band decreased, then the number of professional bands must have increased.
    
   Note: It could’ve also been the other possibility, that solo musicians increased. This wouldn’t be a good MBT answer, but it’s a good MSS answer. In this case, the stimulus was focusing on bands, which made this answer more likely.
5. The stimulus doesn’t discuss musicians playing in multiple bands. It could be true, but it’s not supported by the info given.