LSAT 110 – Section 3 – Question 26

LSAT 110 - Section 3 - Question 26

June 2001

You need a full course to see this video. Enroll now and get started in less than a minute.

Request new explanation

Target time: 0:51

This is question data from the 7Sage LSAT Scorer. You can score your LSATs, track your results, and analyze your performance with pretty charts and vital statistics - all with a Free Account ← sign up in less than 10 seconds

Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT110 S3 Q26
+LR
Argument part +AP
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
15%
165
B
16%
163
C
3%
158
D
2%
160
E
64%
168
149
160
172
 +Hardest 145.976 +SubsectionMedium

The media now devote more coverage to crime than they did ten years ago. Yet this is not because the crime rate has increased, but rather because the public is now more interested in reading and hearing about crime. After all, a crucial factor in the media’s decisions about what issues to cover and to what extent to cover them is the interests of their audiences.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author presents an explanation for the media’s increase in crime coverage: it’s the result of increased public interest in crime, rather than the result of actual increases in crime itself. Why would increased public interest in crime have an effect on media coverage? Because the media base their coverage largely on their audiences’ interests.

Identify Argument Part
The text in the question stem is part of the conclusion. It’s the author’s preferred explanation for why the media are devoting more coverage to crime.

A
It supports the conclusion that the media now devote more coverage to crime than the crime rate alone justifies.
It is part of the main conclusion—it doesn’t support any other conclusion. Also, there is never any claim that the media give more coverage to crime than the crime rate justifies.
B
It is presented as evidence that the media decide what to cover and to what extent to cover it depending on the interests of the public.
This gets the argument’s support structure backward. The fact that the media base coverage decisions on the public’s interests provides evidence to believe the proposition in the question stem: the true cause of the media’s growing crime coverage is increased public interest.
C
It is a counterexample to the claim that the media devote more coverage to crime now than they did ten years ago.
It is an explanation for the phenomenon described here—not a counterexample. The author agrees that the media devote more coverage to crime now, and then explains why this is so.
D
It is a generalization based on the claim that the crime rate has increased over the past ten years.
It can’t be a generalization based on this claim, because this claim is never made in the stimulus. The proposition in the question stem is a hypothesis.
E
It is offered as an alternative explanation of why the media devote more coverage to crime now than they did ten years ago.
This describes the role of the proposition in the question stem. It’s the author’s explanation, which he offers as an alternative to the theory that the media’s growing crime coverage is due to an increase in crime itself.

Take PrepTest

Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 110 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

Get full LSAT course

Leave a Reply