LSAT 5 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q22

LR Question 22 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Once people habitually engaged in conversation; now the…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning

CONCLUSION: The only solution is to get rid of the television.

REASONING: If there is no communication, family ties fray. TV can sometimes prevent communication, for a time.

ANALYSIS: I rephrased the reasoning to clear up what the argument is doing. TV could cause problems, but there is no evidence that it actually does break up families. Do you know any family that has completely ceased communicating because of TV?

There could be other reasons why families stop communicating. And there could be other solutions apart from eliminating TV.

___________

1. This isn’t a bad argument. It was implausible to think that families would completely cease communicating because of TV. It is plausible to think that people might cut out leisure time with friends if they have no free time.
2. This is a pretty good argument too, though we could use more information. But we know at least that people could have done other activities while listening to the radio. They don’t seem to do the same with TV.
3. CORRECT. As in the stimulus, it is absurd to believe that spectator sports are entirely responsible for the decline in physical activity. Likewise, there are probably other solutions apart from completely banning people from watching sports.
4. Their proposed cause seems likely: cars have displaced fixed schedule public transit. And the proposed solution isn’t as extreme as in the stimulus. They don’t recommend banning cars.
5. This isn’t quite a good argument (why is shopping necessarily leisure?), but it doesn’t have the same flaws as the stimulus.

Recap: The question begins with “Once people habitually engaged in conversation; now the”. It is a Flawed Parallel Reasoning question. Learn more about LSAT Flawed Parallel questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.