LSAT 103 – Section 1 – Question 10

LSAT 103 - Section 1 - Question 10

September 1998

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Question QuickView	Type	Tags	Answer Choices	Curve	Question Difficulty	Psg/Game/S Difficulty	Explanation
PT103 S1 Q10	+LR +Exp	Weaken +Weak Link Assumption +LinkA	A 72% 166 B 5% 159 C 22% 161 D 1% 152 E 0% 168	141 153 165	+Harder	147.884 +SubsectionMedium

Audiences find a speaker more convincing if the speaker begins a speech by arguing briefly against his or her position before providing reasons for accepting it. The reason this technique is so effective is that it makes the speaker appear fair-minded and trustworthy. Therefore, candidates for national political office who wish to be successful in winning votes should use this argumentative technique in their speeches.

Summarize Argument

The author concludes that candidates for national political office should begin their speeches by briefly arguing against their own position before giving reasons why their position should in fact be accepted. As evidence, she claims that the technique is effective since it makes the speaker look fair-minded and trustworthy.

Notable Assumptions

The author assumes that candidates should do what audiences find generally most effective in a speech. This means that the author doesn’t believe that candidates’ speeches differ from other sorts of speeches, at least not to an extent that the technique wouldn’t work.

Political candidates typically have no control over which excerpts from their speeches will be reported by the news media.

While a candidate holds position A, the news media simply shows clips of them arguing against that same position. This isn’t a good look for a candidates, and seriously weakens the efficacy of this technique.

Many people do not find arguments made by politicians convincing, since the arguments are often one-sided or oversimplify the issues.

If anything, this strengthens the author’s position. If people find politicians’ arguments one-sided, then this technique would presumably mitigate that problem.

People decide which political candidate to vote for more on the basis of their opinions of the candidate’s character than on the exact positions of the candidate.

While people care more about the candidate’s character than their positions, the positions may still matter. And the technique the author recommends might then still be effective.

People regard a political candidate more favorably if they think that the candidate respects an opponent’s position even while disagreeing with it.

This seems to support the author’s argument. If people think being fair and even-handed is a good quality in a candidate, than the recommended technique would be useful.

Political candidates have to address audiences of many different sizes and at many different locations in the course of a political campaign.

We have no idea how the technique in question works on different audiences. We know that, in general, it’s effective. We need something that weakens the idea politicians should start using it.

LSAT 103 – Section 1 – Question 10

LSAT 103 - Section 1 - Question 10

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LSAT PrepTest 103 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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