LSAT 114 – Section 4 – Question 13

LSAT 114 - Section 4 - Question 13

October 2002

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT114 S4 Q13
+LR
Weaken +Weak
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Sampling +Smpl
A
77%
163
B
5%
157
C
7%
157
D
9%
157
E
1%
155
131
145
159
 +Medium 144.851 +SubsectionEasier

A recent study reveals that television advertising does not significantly affect children’s preferences for breakfast cereals. The study compared two groups of children. One group had watched no television, and the other group had watched average amounts of television and its advertising. Both groups strongly preferred the sugary cereals heavily advertised on television.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that TV advertising doesn’t have a strong impact on children’s cereal preferences. This hypothesis is based on a study that compared the cereal preferences of children who had watched no television with children who had watched average amounts of television. The study showed that both groups strongly preferred sugary cereals that were heavily advertised on television.

Notable Assumptions
The argument assumes that the group of children who had watched no TV was not indirectly impacted in some way by the TV ads. Additionally, it could be the case that the children who watched TV were swayed by the TV ads, and the children who watched no TV were swayed by something else, like print ads. The study cited does not strongly support the conclusion that TV ads are not strongly impacting children’s preferences.

A
The preferences of children who do not watch television advertising are influenced by the preferences of children who watch the advertising.
(A) shows that the children who hadn’t watched any television could have been indirectly influenced by the television ads. This is an alternate hypothesis that could explain the study results, so it weakens the author’s argument.
B
The preference for sweets is not a universal trait in humans, and can be influenced by environmental factors such as television advertising.
The fact that it’s possible for something like television advertising to influence preferences does nothing to suggest that it did influence preferences. This does not provide any information that impacts the argument.
C
Most of the children in the group that had watched television were already familiar with the advertisements for these cereals.
It doesn’t matter if these children were already familiar with the advertisements, because they would have become familiar during the experiment. It doesn’t matter when they were exposed to the ads; we only care if they were influenced by these ads.
D
Both groups rejected cereals low in sugar even when these cereals were heavily advertised on television.
This provides further information to suggest that advertisements don’t successfully impact children’s preferences. This agrees with the argument’s conclusion and does not weaken the argument.
E
Cereal preferences of adults who watch television are known to be significantly different from the cereal preferences of adults who do not watch television.
The argument is about children’s preferences, so this information about adults is irrelevant to the argument and does not weaken it.

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LSAT PrepTest 114 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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