LSAT 88, Logical Reasoning I, Q25, LSATHacks

LR Question 25 Explanation, by LSATHacks

QUESTION TEXT: Babson: The idea of charging people a dollar to read…

QUESTION TYPE: Point at Issue: Disagree

ARGUMENTS: Babson says charging people a dollar to read articles will work since tipping is common.

Cortez says that people only tip for services where it’s customary to tip. People don’t currently tip for articles so charging people a dollar to read articles is a bad idea.

ANALYSIS: What is it exactly that Babson and Cortez disagree about? Babson thinks people would tip to read articles. Cortez thinks people wouldn’t. So the disagreement lies in 1) how optimistic they are that this dollar per article model would work, and 2) people’s willingness to “tip” (pay the dollar) for the articles. The correct answer would be similar to these two predictions.

___________

1. Cortez agrees with this, but Babson doesn’t say anything about spending money under customary circumstances, so he might actually agree with this.
2. The stimulus isn’t talking about tipping in different countries, it’s about tipping for services where it’s customary to do so vs. Where it isn’t.
3. We don’t care about the “possibility” of writing articles that people would tip to read. This is irrelevant to what Babson and Cortez are talking about, which is “would” making people tip to read be a good idea.
4. CORRECT. Babson thinks charging a dollar to read high quality articles is worth it, and so it will be successful. Cortez says since people aren’t used to tipping for articles, they probably wouldn’t, and so this idea wouldn’t be successful.
5. We don’t care about the likelihood of people finding tipping per read as a new idea. This tells us nothing about it people would think this is a good idea.

Recap: The question begins with “Babson: The idea of charging people a dollar to read”. It is a Point at Issue question. Learn how to master LSAT Point at Issue questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.

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