LSAT 135 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q2

LR Question 2 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Syndicated political columnists often use their newspaper…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: Columnists rarely persuade voters.

REASONING: By the time columns appear, almost all voters who will vote have decided who to vote for.

ANALYSIS: This sounds like a good argument. But it treats coming to a decision as being set in stone. You know that people often change their minds. Maybe someone has decided to vote Republican, but then a persuasive column convinces them to switch their vote.

The argument has to assume that once someone decides who to vote for, they don’t change.

___________

1. This would weaken the argument. The argument argues that columns don’t have influence.
2. This shows that columns backfire. Tell someone to vote Republican and they’ll vote Democrat. The argument doesn’t have to assume this.
3. The argument doesn’t have to assume you only read people you agree with. They just have to assume that you won’t change your mind if someone tries to persuade you to switch candidates.
4. This “regular readers” idea is misleading. The stimulus never mentioned it. They were talking about all people who read columns.
5. CORRECT. Exactly. I often change my mind, even after I’ve decided to do something. The argument has to assume that voters won’t change their ideas once they come to a decision.