PT48.S1.Q06 - the pubic interest comprises

vrendonvasquez

Can you someone please further explain why AC (C) is wrong? Please also let me know your thoughts on my explanations. Thank you!

P1: Public interest comprises many interests
P2: The broadcast media must serve all of them.
P3: Most TV viewers would prefer an action show to an opera.
P4: A constant stream of action shows on all channels is not in the public interest
C: The broadcast media should not have a constant stream of action shows on all channels because by doing so, it would not meet its obligations of serving the public interest (comprised of many interests).

https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-48-section-1-question-06/

A ) If broadcasters look only to popularity, then broadcasters won’t satisfy their obligations of serving the public interest.
B ) Posed a hypothetical situation. We don’t know how many artistic and cultural shows are already being contrasted compared to other types of shows nor do we know if TV shows are being broadcasted in the right proportions to serve the public interst. Therefore, we don’t know if the public interest is being/not being met.
C ) The question didn’t ask to extrapolate beyond the information in the argument, but to logically complete the argument. AC (C) could be considered an inference from the information given, but not a conclusion that logically follows. The stimulus also discusses what broadcast media must do, not what television producers should do.
D ) Artistic quality is irrelevant and not discussed in the argument. Popularity doesn’t imply no artistic quality.
E ) “Only” is too strong and limiting of a word. Action shows could be replaced by opera or any other type of show and would not serve the public interest.

lady macbeth

When I answered this question for the first time I chose incorrect AC (E), then during BR chose correct AC (A) and when I went back to the question now, chose the correct answer (A) again. Perhaps after some time, I can recognize what's wrong. Your explanation of how E is too strong is exactly what came through my thoughts this time around. I think I eliminated C right away because nothing in the stimulus mentions a new program or development, just the obligations of broadcasters.

Sami

@vrendonvasquez said:
Can you someone please further explain why AC (C) is wrong? Please also let me know your thoughts on my explanations. Thank you!

C: The broadcast media should not have a constant stream of action shows on all channels because by doing so, it would not meet its obligations of serving the public interest (comprised of many interests).

I think its very important for this logically complete questions to be treated a bit differently from MSS or MBT questions. While MSS/MBT answer choices are inferences from any part of the stimulus, the logically completes questions have what I like to call a "prompt" that must be followed and completed.

The prompt in this case is: "But a constant stream of action shows on all channels is not in the public interest". Knowing what we know about how broadcast media needs to serve all of the public interest, what can we say about having a constant stream of action shows and their duties to serve public interest?

A)If broadcasters look only to popularity, then broadcasters won’t satisfy their obligations of serving the public interest.

Great. Hopefully you were able to predict this before going in to the answer choices because of the prompt.

Posed a hypothetical situation. We don’t know how many artistic and cultural shows are already being contrasted compared to other types of shows nor do we know if TV shows are being broadcasted in the right proportions to serve the public interst. Therefore, we don’t know if the public interest is being/not being met.

I think the bigger question is does the argument make a prescriptive statement? Do we know if the argument says what "should or should not" be considered? We only have have descriptive statements in the stimulus. We know what broadcast media must do and what would not be in the public interest.
Also, what do we know about artistic/cultural shows from the stimulus?
Do we have no idea how many action shows are currently being broadcasted. In the stimulus we only have one threshold, "constant stream", anything less than constant and we can't actually say anything about it.

C) The question didn’t ask to extrapolate beyond the information in the argument, but to logically complete the argument. AC (C) could be considered an inference from the information given, but not a conclusion that logically follows. The stimulus also discusses what broadcast media must do, not what television producers should do.

This is another reason why this answer choice is wrong. It is very similar to answer choice B. The argument never makes a prescription on what should or should not be done. We only have statements about what is the case and the obligations of broadcast media. So even as an inference this answer choice would be a hard sell because we don't know what the author would want us to do.

D)Artistic quality is irrelevant and not discussed in the argument. Popularity doesn’t imply no artistic quality.

Great. We have no information on artistic quality from stimulus.

E)“Only” is too strong and limiting of a word. Action shows could be replaced by opera or any other type of show and would not serve the public interest.

Awesome! We know constant action shows do not serve public interest, but there could be other type of shows that also do not serve public interest.

I hope this answered your question.