LSAT 108 – Section 3 – Question 20

LSAT 108 - Section 3 - Question 20

February 2000

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT108 S3 Q20
+LR
Point at issue: disagree +Disagr
A
18%
164
B
10%
161
C
1%
155
D
4%
158
E
67%
168
145
158
170
 +Harder 147.273 +SubsectionMedium

Sarah: Reporters, by allotting time to some events rather than others, are exercising their judgment as to what is newsworthy and what is not. In other words, they always interpret the news.

Ramon: Reporters should never interpret the news. Once they deem a story to be newsworthy, they are obliged to relay the facts to me untainted.

Speaker 1 Summary

Sarah argues that reporters “always interpret the news.” How so? When reporters decide what is and isn’t newsworthy, they’re using their judgment. This, Sarah implies, is an act of interpretation.

Speaker 2 Summary

Ramon argues that “reporters should never interpret the news.” As support, he says that reporters have an obligation to objectively communicate the facts of anything they deem newsworthy. This indicates that Ramon doesn’t think that determining newsworthiness counts as interpretation as long as the facts are “untainted.”

Objective

We need to find an idea that the speakers disagree on. One such idea is whether determining the newsworthiness of an event counts as interpretation. Sarah thinks it does, but Ramon thinks it doesn’t.

A
Reporters actually do interpret the news every time they report it.

Sarah agrees with this, but Ramon doesn’t express an opinion. Ramon’s argument is all about what reporters “should” do, and never goes into what they actually do or don’t do.

B
Reporters should exercise their own judgment as to which events are newsworthy.

Like (D), neither speaker offers an opinion on this. Sarah never says anything about what reporters should or shouldn’t do. Ramon never discusses the standard by which reporters should deem events newsworthy, so it could be by their judgment or some other standard.

C
Reporters’ primary responsibility is to see that people are kept informed of the facts.

Neither speaker discusses the ranking of reporters’ responsibilities. Sarah doesn’t mention any kind of responsibility at all, while Ramon talks about an obligation not to taint the facts, but doesn’t say what reporters’ primary responsibility might be.

D
Reporters should not allot time to reporting some events rather than others.

Like (B), neither speaker discusses this. Lucy only talks about what does happen, not what should happen. Ramon does talk about what should happen, but only in the context of leaving facts “untainted” rather than how reporters should allot their time.

E
Reporting on certain events rather than others qualifies as interpreting the news.

Lucy agrees with this, but Ramon disagrees, so this is the point of disagreement. This is the conclusion of Lucy’s argument. On the other hand, Ramon thinks that deciding what’s newsworthy doesn’t count as interpreting as long as the facts are left “untainted”.

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LSAT PrepTest 108 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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