Public Opinion = majority?

Comments

• iamcardibri Alum Member

  May 2018 edited May 2018 314 karma

  Hmmm.. it's hard to say without any context. Usually specific terminology in an argument has little bearing in the overall structure and the way in which the pieces of the argument interact with each other. Unless its a very convoluted main conclusion question or something like that lol.

  So I think it really depends on what the question stem is and what the available answer choices are... Care to provide??
• Ohnoeshalpme Alum Member ⭐

  May 2018 edited May 2018 2531 karma

  LSAT writers are very specific about the words that they use. If they wanted to say majority, they would do it in other ways. Terms like "public opinion" are often used in ways that make them appear to be equivalent to "most" or "all" but they are different.

  I would not assume that public opinion = majority. Public opinion should be interpreted as an opinion that is common among the general public. The term does not necessarily denote a majority, however.
• TexAgAaron Alum Member

  May 2018 1723 karma

  This would be decided within the context of the stimulus. Public opinion can equal majority but there are plenty of cases where it does not. This is where the LSAT writers can get you to make assumptions so you need to be very careful when reading. The writers will, however, make it clear what public opinion constitutes so just be on the lookout and understand where the stimulus is going.
• Leah M B Alum Member ⭐

  May 2018 8392 karma

  I think it generally implies that, yes. But would need to be taken in context of the stimulus.

  Like for an example that might illustrate what folks are saying above, think about elections. Often the result is something like winning candidate has 47% and losing candidate has 43%. Those don't add up to 100% - roughly 10% of folks likely voted for a third party or write-in candidate. So technically, you can't say that the winning candidate had a majority of votes, since it is less than 50%. But, they did have the most votes.

  Could be a similar thing with public opinion. It could be less than 50%, but still be the most popular opinion in a given argument.
• Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  May 2018 4428 karma

  I think we need more of the actual wording to give you a good interpretation.

  I think a more natural wording would be public opinion favors blank. In that case I think you can safely assume that more people support blank than oppose blank. As pointed out above though that doesn't necessarily mean a majority just a plurality if many have no strong feeling.
• tringo335 Alum Member ⭐

  May 2018 3679 karma

  I would say generally yes.
• Small_victories Free Trial Member

  May 2018 104 karma

  Thanks for replying, everyone!
  I was looking at PT43, Section 2, Question 21 about the curator and magazine.
  The stimulus refers to "most residents", and the right answer choice appears to paraphrase that as "public opinion". I got confused about that and wanted to hear your insight.
• tams2018 Member

  May 2018 727 karma

  @Small_victories said:
  Thanks for replying, everyone!
  I was looking at PT43, Section 2, Question 21 about the curator and magazine.
  The stimulus refers to "most residents", and the right answer choice appears to paraphrase that as "public opinion". I got confused about that and wanted to hear your insight.

  in this case public opinion would mean the majority of the local residents.