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Comments

• 1 Like

  quinnxzhang Member

  March 2016 edited March 2016 611 karma

  Your version looks right to me (maybe include the word "should" in the consequent for clarity?).
  
  I dunno where your friend thinks the embedded conditional is coming from. I suppose if you translated this into predicate logic, instead of propositional logic, there would be a conditional in the consequent as well, but there's rarely ever a reason to do this on the LSAT.
• runiggyrun Alum Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  March 2016 2481 karma

  Yes, add the "should" and you're good to go. Without the should it implies that the show will be canceled if it doesn't attract the audience. Just because it should doesn't mean it will...
• MrSamIam Inactive ⭐

  March 2016 2086 karma

  Yup, don't forget the should. Remember, this is prescriptive, not descriptive. The author is offering his or her opinion on what should happen, not what will happen.
• quinnxzhang Member

  March 2016 edited March 2016 611 karma

  @MrSamIam said:
  Yup, don't forget the should. Remember, this is prescriptive, not descriptive. The author is offering his or her opinion on what should happen, not what will happen.
  

  That something is a prescriptive doesn't imply that it's an opinion. I dunno if the author is offering an opinion in the context of this question, but we shouldn't generally assume this principle.
• MrSamIam Inactive ⭐

  March 2016 edited March 2016 2086 karma

  @quinnxzhang Agreed - with the statement that you can't always assume that the author is offering their opinion. However, from what is quoted above, the author is providing an opinion (his or hers) on what should happen if condition X is met.
  I'm not saying that all prescriptive statements are the opinion of the author. However, this one evidently is.
  
  Edit: If what is being quoted is simply context, then ignore the statements above.
  P.S. By opinion, I mean what the author thinks "should" happen, may happen, etc.
• J_Clarkson Alum Member

  March 2016 edited October 2019 585 karma

  quinn makes some great points
• quinnxzhang Member

  March 2016 edited March 2016 611 karma

  @MrSamIam said:
  However, from what is quoted above, the author is providing an opinion (his or hers) on what should happen if condition X is met.
  I'm not saying that all prescriptive statements are the opinion of the author. However, this one evidently is.
  
  

  We still shouldn't presume the author is expressing his/her opinion in the quote because "should" is still ambiguous without more context.
  
  Sometimes, "should" is used to express something like an expectation. For example, "Lisa played perfectly the entire game. Short of an aneurysm in the next 5 minutes, she should win the game." The "should" in this example isn't expressing an opinion.
  
  Similarly, the author could just as well be using "should" in the same sense as the above. Perhaps the television series in question has been roundly criticized and hemorrhaging money. Perhaps the producers are trying to attract a larger audience in a last ditch effort to save the show. In this context, the "should" would be more akin to the expectation than the prescription or the opinion.
• MrSamIam Inactive ⭐

  March 2016 edited March 2016 2086 karma

  @quinnxzhang That's why I qualified my statement above. I think you may have misunderstood what I meant by the authors "opinion". By opinion, I don't mean what the author believes is right or wrong, but what the author, in his or her opinion, believes (expects) to happen.