LSAT 154 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q20

LR Question 20 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Critic: The more a novel appeals to the general public…

QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption

CONCLUSION: Serious novelists aren’t primarily motivated by the desire to make money.

REASONING: Serious novelists care about literary styles. The more a novel appeals to the general public, the more money the author will make.

ANALYSIS: The sentence about appealing to the general public is irrelevant. We can diagram the remainder of the stimulus like this:

Premise: If serious novelist ➞ care about literary style

Conclusion: If serious novelist ➞ not primarily motivated by money

The correct answer choice will provide a connection between literary style and making money not being the primary desire. Our prephrase can be: “if you care about literary style, then making money isn’t your primary desire”.

___________

1. The “appeals to the general public” part is irrelevant as it does nothing to lead us to the conclusion.
2. CORRECT. This matches our prephrase.
3. The stimulus never mentions “good” literary style.
4. This also talks about appealing to the general public, so we can eliminate it.
5. Like D, this also talks about appealing to the general public.

Recap: The question begins with “Critic: The more a novel appeals to the general public”. It is a Sufficient Assumption question. Learn more about LSAT Sufficient questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.