LSAT 118 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q6

LR Question 6 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Maria: Popular music is bad art because it greatly …

QUESTION TYPE: Point At Issue

ARGUMENTS: MARIA’S ARGUMENT: Pop music is bad art because it doesn’t reflect reality.

THEO’S ARGUMENT: Pop music isn’t supposed to reflect reality. It has other functions.

ANALYSIS: Find something one person believes and the other rejects.

Maria thinks pop music is bad art because it fails to reflect reality. That only makes sense if Maria believes accurate representation of reality is an important requirement of good art.

Theo is basically saying: Art can still be valuable even if it doesn’t accurately represent reality.

That’s the core disagreement. Notice that Theo does not argue that pop music accurately reflects reality. Instead, he argues it doesn’t need to.

___________

1. Neither speaker discusses whether most good art creates consoling fantasies. Theo says popular music can provide consoling fantasies, but he never makes a claim about most good art.
2. Maria would probably agree that art which exaggerates reality can be bad. Theo never comments on whether some bad art does that.
3. Neither speaker discusses whether art should represent reality as it could be rather than as it is. That’s a new distinction introduced by this answer.
4. CORRECT. Maria disagrees with this, while Theo agrees with this.
5. Both speakers treat popular music as an art form. Maria calls it bad art. Theo defends it as serving artistic functions. So neither denies that it is art.