LSAT 72, Logical Reasoning II, Q3, LSATHacks

LR Question 3 Explanation, by LSATHacks

QUESTION TEXT: Restaurant owner: The newspaper reporter who panned my…

QUESTION TYPE: Identify the Conclusion

CONCLUSION: The newspaper reporter is not a true restaurant critic.

REASONING: The reporter has said he has no expertise about food or food preparation. His past experience was as a political reporter.

ANALYSIS: On identify the conclusion questions, ask yourself: “Why are they telling me this?”

The restaurant owner is annoyed at the negative review. So she’s trying to show that the review shouldn’t be listened to. She wants to show us that the newspaper reporter isn’t really a good critic. 

Notice the word “but”. Words like “but”, “however” etc. almost always introduce a conclusion.

The real point of the argument, of course, is that we should not pay attention to the negative review. But that main point is merely implied. The fact about the reporter not being a true critic is the explicitly stated conclusion.

___________

1. This is evidence that supports the conclusion that the reporter is not a true food critic.
2. This is evidence that the reporter has no background in food and thus they are not a true food critic.
3. The fact that the reporter is a good writer is evidence in favor of the reporter. The restaurant owner hopes to sound more persuasive by acknowledging a positive (but mostly irrelevant) fact about the reporter.
4. CORRECT. This is the conclusion. The word “but” indicates that this is the author’s opinion. And this answers the question “why is the owner telling us this?”. The entire argument was aimed at convincing us that the reporter is not a true food critic (and therefore we shouldn’t pay attention to the negative review).
5. This is an analogy that supports the conclusion that someone without food training is not a food critic.

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