PT20.S4.Q01 - critic: people today place

lsatstudier

Can someone explain how they approached this question and got to answer choice D? Thank you so much in advance!
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-20-section-4-question-01/

thisissparta

Context - People nowadays place a high value on respect for others. However, today's popular comedians display blatant disrespect in comedy acts.

Premise - Why is this being noticed? Because (some) people are failing to live up to their ideals. The failure of living up to these highly esteemed values then, forms a basis for comedy.

Conclusion - As a result, popularity of comedians who disrespect others is unsurprising.

What's the assumption here?

Look back at the second sentence of the stimulus. It says "when people fail to live up to their ideals...". In other words, it poses a potential hypothesis for a definitive conclusion. Within the premise, it is assumed that there are, in fact, at least some people fail to live up to certain ideals. If this wasn't the case, the conclusion wouldn't follow. AC (D) encapsulates this perfectly. Apply the negation test to double check. The entire argument will fall apart. This is a good indication that you've got the right answer.

Let's go over the other ACs:

(A) Not true - you can place a high value on respect, not live up to the ideal, and still enjoy comedy acts. As pointed out in the stimulus.
(B) Way too strong and assertive in its tone. Not necessarily true.
(C) Irrelevant information.
(E) Don't care about the past.

lsatstudier

Thank you so much for this @thisissparta! Do you feel like conditional language shows up a lot in NA questions on newer tests? What is your strategy for quickly negating conditional answers under timed conditions?

thisissparta

@lsatstudier said:
Thank you so much for this @thisissparta! Do you feel like conditional language shows up a lot in NA questions on newer tests? What is your strategy for quickly negating conditional answers under timed conditions?

Hey again, @lsatstudier! So I don't think we can really neatly classify this stimulus as one which is loaded with conditional language. In fact, there aren't any conditional indicators used, at all. There isn't really a mechanical way of deconstructing such a stimulus, so I spend time on trying to really understand the stimulus and see how each component fits into the other (i.e., the premise and conclusion). Now, it's an assumption question, so each component won't fit - this is where I try to (especially on the easier NA questions) bridge the gap before I look at the answer choice. This helps me predict what the right AC might look like. When I'm scanning the ACs, this process has helped me in eliminating wrong answer choices relatively quickly.

For the harder questions, we have to typically block/protect the argument. This would mean that there are subtleties in the questions which we have to look out for; again, spending time on the stimulus is the key. You can't really predict the AC here, so I move to scanning over the ACs and try to apply the negation test to see if the argument stays in tact. If it doesn't, then that's your correct answer.

As for your first question - I haven't started PTing the newer tests yet, so I wouldn't really be able to answer that.

lsatstudier

Thanks @thisissparta!