LR Question 26 Explanation, by LSATHacks
QUESTION TEXT: The media now devote more coverage to crime than…
QUESTION TYPE: Role in Argument
CONCLUSION: The increase in crime coverage is because the public is more interested in crime stories. It is not because there is more crime.
REASONING: The media pays close attention to the tastes and interests of the public when it decides what to cover.
ANALYSIS: The argument presents an alternate explanation for why crime coverage is increasing.
It’s because people are more interested in crime. I disagree slightly with the correct answer, E.
I think the fact that people are more interested in crime is just part of the larger conclusion: there is more crime coverage because of this increased interest, not because there is more crime.
But E is still the best choice. The increased interest in crime is an alternate explanation.
The “after all” indicates that the statement right before is the conclusion.
___________
- I found this very tempting. But it mis-states the conclusion. We have no idea how much crime coverage is justified. All we know is that there is more coverage than ten years ago – but maybe there wasn’t enough crime coverage then!
- Actually, no evidence was given for the claim that the media decide to cover stories based on interest. The LSAT usually doesn’t have to give evidence for its premises.
- I think the LSAT is trying to impress us by using the word “counterexample”. This is nonsense. The stimulus never attempts to disprove the idea that crime coverage has increased – it tries to explain this fact.
- Crime coverage has increased. We’re not told whether the crime rate has increased.
- CORRECT. If you ignore my caveat in the Analysis section, this is pretty straightforward. The increased public interest in crime explains the increase in coverage.
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This is so confusing to me. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this structure. The first sentence feels like the conclusion to me, given that there is support/explanation for it in the next sentence. The word “because” itself implies that the clause about the public’s interest is an explanation/support for some other phrase. At best, the clause referenced in the question stem feels like some kind of intermediate conclusion or major premise.