Logical reasoning PrepTest 106 · Section 3 · Question 6

Question prompt

Jane: Television programs and Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: B

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Argument/Argument

Valid or Flawed

Flawed/Flawed

Question Type

Strengthen Questions

Stimulus Summary

J: Violent teen TV is popular and causes teens to be violent. Violent scenes with teens should thus be banned.
M: That’s censorship! Plus kids were violent before violent TV, so violent TV doesn’t cause violence.

Answer Anticipation

This question asks us to Strengthen Jane’s argument, so we can completely ignore what Maurice has to say!
Jane’s argument concludes a recommendation - violence should be prohibited in movies promoted to young audiences, because violence in the media causes young people to be violent. Note that the premise here is causal - Jane establishes as a fact that there’s good reason to believe violent TV/movies cause young people to be violent. So we’re not dealing with a correlation/causation flaw.
When an argument concludes a recommendation, it needs to establish the criteria by which that recommendation will be made (usually a goal to be reached), and show that the recommended course of action will meet that criteria. Here, the goal is to prevent violence among young people, so the argument isn’t falling short there.
However, Jane does fail to establish that banning violence from movies/programs promoted to young audiences will help achieve that goal! While violent programming does cause violence, there’s no indication that youths are being exposed to such violence in shows promoted to them. Maybe they’re being exposed to this violence by watching shows aimed at adults. To strengthen Jane’s argument, then, we should look for an answer stating that it’s the shows promoted to young audiences that’s exposing the youth to violence.

Answer choices

  1. A
    The most violent characters Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    What is relevant to Jane’s argument is whether these programs are promoted to young audiences, not the age of the characters/actors.
  2. B
    The movies that have Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B matches the stem
    Jane’s recommendation is that violence be banned from programming promoted to young audiences because violence in programming makes them violent. If the programming promoted to those audiences is the most influential, then that strengthens the recommendation to ban violence in those programs specifically, so this is the correct answer.
  3. C
    The people who make Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Profitability is out of scope of the argument.
  4. D
    Many adolescents who engage Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    This answer weakens the causal relationship between violent programming and violent behavior, which cuts against Jane’s argument.
  5. E
    Among the producers who Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    First, this answer is about a limited subset of individuals (those who produce both TV and movies), which makes its force limited. Second, what they voluntarily do is out of scope of what should be done - especially without knowing the reasoning behind their actions.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 6%
  2. B Credited 88%
  3. C 1%
  4. D 1%
  5. E 3%

Deeper help

Ask follow-ups on any step

Optional AI tutor mode will let you interrogate assumptions, compare answers, and drill weak patterns without leaving the page.

Human-written explanations stay primary; AI is an add-on when you want it.

Discussion

No threads yet—be the first to ask a question or share an approach.

View all discussions Start a discussion