LSAT 120 – Section 4 – Question 16

LSAT 120 - Section 4 - Question 16

October 2005

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT120 S4 Q16
+LR
+Exp
Point at issue: disagree +Disagr
Value Judgment +ValJudg
A
4%
153
B
2%
158
C
2%
154
D
1%
152
E
91%
162
128
138
147
 +Easier 146.628 +SubsectionMedium

Logan: Newspapers have always focused on ephemeral matters while ignoring important societal changes. For this and other reasons, old newspapers are useless to both amateur and professional historians.

Mendez: But news stories, along with popular art, provide a wealth of information about what the people of an era thought and felt.

Speaker 1 Summary
Logan claims that old newspapers are useless to historians. Why are they useless? Because newspapers have only ever focused on minor matters, without paying any attention to larger changes in society. (Logan is also assuming that the only knowledge that’s useful to historians is about those larger changes in society.)

Speaker 2 Summary
Mendez’s argument is designed to support the idea that newspapers are useful to historians, although this is implied rather than stated. To lead to this conclusion, Mendez says that news stories and popular art are a good source of knowledge about people’s thoughts and feelings. (Mendez is assuming that this knowledge is useful to historians.)

Objective
We’re looking for a disagreement. Logan and Mendez disagree about whether historical newspapers are useful to historians.

A
newspapers accurately report the most important changes taking place in a society
Logan disagrees with this, and Mendez never contradicts Logan’s position. If anything, Mendez seems to accept this claim, and instead focuses on other useful knowledge that newspapers can provide.
B
the study of previous eras should include investigations of the conventions of newspaper reporting
Neither speaker talks about what historians should investigate when studying previous eras. All we know is what Logan and Mendez think about newspapers’ usefulness. We can’t assume that that translates into concrete directions for historians to investigate or not.
C
popular art is an important source of information about what the people of previous eras thought and felt
Mendez would agree with this, but Logan never mentions popular art. The only opinions we know from Logan are about newspapers, so we can’t say whether the speakers agree or disagree about art.
D
newspapers ought to focus more on the types of stories they have glossed over in the past
Neither speaker makes any claim about what newspapers should do now or in the future. We can’t know if the speakers’ opinions about newspapers as a historical source have any bearing on their opinions about what modern newspapers should report on.
E
newspaper reports from former eras are useful sources of material for understanding the past
Logan disagrees with this and Mendez agrees, so this is the point of disagreement. Logan states that newspapers are not useful to historians. Mendez, however, brings up a way that newspapers can be useful, supporting the implied conclusion that they are useful.

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LSAT PrepTest 120 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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