QUESTION TEXT: It is likely that most of the new television…
QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen
CONCLUSION: Probably most of Wilke and Wilke’s new TV shows produced this season will be cancelled.
REASONING: Their new shows are all police dramas, which haven’t been popular recently. And most of their new shows last year were cancelled.
ANALYSIS: This is already a pretty good argument. But the past doesn’t guarantee the future. So to strengthen the argument, we should show a further reason why the shows will be cancelled, or another similarity with the shows cancelled last season.
Remember, on a strengthen question you must take answers at their weakest. If something merely could strengthen, in a specific scenario, it’s not correct. And read all the answers before choosing – this helps you avoid traps like B.
___________
- This answer makes the conclusion slightly harder. The conclusion was that most of the shows will be cancelled. So if there are more shows this year, we now need a higher number of cancellations. This answer makes the conclusion slightly harder.
You might have picked this thinking “they can’t make a lot of good shows”. But that’s an unwarranted assumption – you’re not supposed to pick answers just because there’s a possible way they strengthen the argument. - This says that most of the shows last year were police dramas. But the stimulus only said that most of the new shows last year were cancelled. This answer switches terms. It’s possible, in fact, that last year their police dramas were old, popular shows, and the new, cancelled shows last year weren’t police dramas.
- This sounds good, but you must take a strengthen answer at its weakest. It’s possible that last year Wilke and Wilke produced zero police dramas. In that case, this answers tells us nothing.
- CORRECT. This strongly strengthens the argument. Wilke and Wilke completely failed with new police dramas last year, and we have no evidence they’ll be more successful this year.
- So? It doesn’t matter what the most popular shows were. We only care if shows avoid being cancelled – they don’t have to be the most popular.
If you picked this, you probably made an additional assumption like “only the most popular shows avoid being cancelled”. Don’t try to help answers by adding unwarranted assumptions.
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Sean W says
couldn’t you use the similar reasoning for rejecting C for D? maybe all of the new shows that weren’t canceled last year were police dramas too. that’s just the opposite of C. I still find both C and D to be equally valid…
FounderGraeme Blake says
The difference is that D enriches the link between the info we already know about and C doesn’t.
The conclusion is that most new shows will be cancelled. We have two points of evidence:
1. Most new shows were cancelled last season
2. Most of the new shows are police dramas, which are rarely popular
By showing that the cancelled shows were police dramas, D shows that there is a link between these new shows and the past cancelled shows.
You’re correct that C eliminates the possibility that the non-cancelled shows were police dramas. But:
1. C doesn’t tell us that any cancelled shows were police dramas. It leaves open the possibility there were no police dramas last year
2. Suppose that ALL of last year’s shows were police dramas. It would still be true that most were cancelled, which is consistent with the argument.
So C isn’t specific enough to strengthen the argument. Whereas D directly ties together the reasoning, strengthening it.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
Zach says
What I find interesting about this question is that it has a formal logic element to it. While I had difficult with the question at first, I think I have another good explanation for why D is correct.
The conclusion you are trying to strengthen is it is likely most new television programs W&W produce for this season will be canceled.
What we know already is that (1) most of the new shows they produced last season were canceled, (2) their new shows are all police dramas, and (3) few police dramas have been popular in recent years. Since we know that all of their shows this year are police drama’s, we want something to support the premise that most police drama’s will fail.
If we consider (D), we know postulate that all of the new shows W&W produced last year that were canceled were police dramas. Therefore, we know if there were any police drama’s they produced last year that were not cancelled, they necessary were fewer than the police dramas that were canceled because most new shows W&W produced last year were canceled. Therefore, it follows that last year most police dramas produced last year were canceled.
This matches the premise we need in order to conclude that most shows this year will be canceled, if we assume we can make predictions about this years programs based on last years which all the contending answer choices share in common.
TutorLucas (LSAT Hacks) says
This is good analysis, but one note about your method. This is a strengthen question, and, for the most part, there are a number of different opportunities to bolster the arguments of strengthen questions, e.g. multiple holes in the argument that can be filled, or multiple ways to strengthen premises. You’ve chosen to focus on one premise “we want something to support the premise that most police dramas will fail”, but, notice that the explanation is a lot more flexible: “we should show a further reason why the shows will be cancelled, or another similarity with the shows cancelled last season.” Becoming fixated on strengthening one premise can actually waste time (especially in this case, where the use of formal logic was actually unnecessary), and can be a bit risky since the correct answer choice might address a different hole in the argument or different premise then the one you’ve chosen.