PrepTest 119

Incorrect. The argument says it goes after an assumption made by the critics, and that's an attack on their argument, not them. Therefore, this argument doesn't feature an Attacking the Person flaw.

Incorrect. Two issues here. First, the argument focuses on the range of opinion presented by the media, not the amount of exposure given. The former is about different opinions; the latter is just about the amount an issue is covered. Second, the debate is over what the media actually does, not what they should do, so this answer is out of scope.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Critics: The media has too much power over people's opinions on current issues

Author: Media's opinions narrower in range than public's → Critics right
But not Media's opinions narrower in range than public's
Therefore - not Critics right

Answer Anticipation:
The Author of this argument rebuts an opposing view—that of the critics. She brings up a sufficient condition ("true if . . . ") for the Critics to be correct, and then she shows that that assumption/sufficient condition isn't met. From this, she concludes that the Critics aren't correct.

Whenever an argument uses the absence of a sufficient condition to conclude that the necessary condition is also absent, the argument is committing an illegal negation. Let's find an answer reflecting that flaw.

Answer Explanation:
This answer brings up the illegal negation of the stimulus. The argument says that the truth of one claim (the media providing a narrower range of opinion than the public) implies the truth of another (the media has too much power over public opinion), and then it shows that the first claim isn't true, concluding the second claim isn't, either.

Key Takeaway:
This argument has a very specific pattern to it—it brings up a sufficient condition for an argument to be true. While this doesn't appear frequently on the LSAT, it does enough that you should be aware of it. When this happens, remember what you know about conditional statements—sufficient conditions are just one of potentially many conditions that can guarantee the necessary condition, and so showing that it isn't present doesn't mean you can conclude the necessary condition is absent.

Incorrect. There is no statement of what popular opinion is in the stimulus—just a comparison of the range of popular opinion to the range of opinion in the media. There is therefore no Perception vs. Reality flaw.

Incorrect. If there's an opinion on what is desirable, it's only on the power of the media to influence public opinion, not on how wide ranging the opinions represented in the media are.