QUESTION TEXT: Sartore is a better movie reviewer than…
QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen
CONCLUSION: Sartore’s movie reviews will help people decide if they will like a movie.
REASONING: If someone is likely to enjoy a movie, then Sartore’s reviews are more likely to help a person decide whether they will like a movie.
ANALYSIS: This sounds like a good argument, but it makes a subtle switch. It only gives us information about people who are likely to like a movie. But that’s not everyone: what about the people who are likely to be neutral about a movie, or are likely to dislike it?
To be the best reviewer, Sartore must help all people decide whether they will like a film. To strengthen the argument, you should look for an answer that tells us Sartore’s reviews are also helpful for people who are not likely to enjoy a movie. (In which case, Sartore’s review could help those people decide to avoid the movie.)
Note that the section about Sartore giving unfavorable reviews is irrelevant.
“Even though” is a misleading LSAT word – it has no strict logical significance. Usually it indicates a factor that we think might work against an idea. But, in this case the proportion of negative reviews doesn’t tell us anything about the key factor: what about people who aren’t likely to like a movie?
___________
- Technical knowledge is irrelevant. This answer is a form of argument from irrelevant authority. We only care about the results a movie reviewer gets. The knowledge they use to get those results doesn’t matter.
- Unfavorable reviews are irrelevant. We might read a favorable review of a movie and decide we wouldn’t like it. This portion of the argument was a red herring.
- CORRECT. This covers all groups. Now we know that Sartore’s reviews are good for people in the following groups:
* People likely to enjoy a movie (from the stimulus)
* People not likely to enjoy a movie (from this answer) - This doesn’t matter. The argument is about whether people will figure out if they will like a movie. If a reader decides they will hate a movie, then the review has done its job, assuming the reader would have indeed hated the movie.
In other words, the argument is about correctly choosing which movies one will like – i.e. sorting the movies. The point of reviews isn’t to make people like all movies more. - This is actually irrelevant. “Being a good movie reviewer” is about how good someone is at writing reviews – the sheer quantity of reviews isn’t the central point. It likewise doesn’t matter whether the two reviewers review the same movies – what matters is their skill in writing the reviews they do write.
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Jessie says
Why is Kelly not a part of this conclusion scope- is the conclusion not that Sartore is better than Kelly not that he is just a good reviewer in general?
FounderGraeme Blake says
Hmm, you’re right. I ought to have put the conclusion as you put it. I’ve added this to the list for edits. Thanks!
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to address the point.