LSAT 92 - Section 1 - Question 24

This is an NA question.

The editorial begins with a premise that last year, many polls found that most people in the country say that they’re tired of celebrity gossip on TV news and that they’re not willing to watch them anymore. But last year’s ratings for TV news soared.

Okay, so something’s not quite adding up. But what is it? At this point in the stimulus, it resembles an RRE, doesn’t it? What’s going on? How can both of these claims be true?

Well, the editorial thinks (concludes) that often people portray themselves as they wish to be perceived, rather than as they actually are, whether or not they’re aware of it.

That could be the explanation. But in order for that to be the explanation, the argument must assume at least two things.

First, we know that somebody's watching those shows otherwise the ratings couldn’t have soared. And it’s a lot of somebodies. In order for the conclusion to follow, we have to assume that at least some of those same people who responded to the polls saying they’re sick of the shows and don’t want to watch them anymore ended up watching anyway. There must be at least some overlap between the set of people who say they don’t want to watch and the set of people who watched. If there’s no overlap, then that means everyone who ended up watching either didn’t respond to the polls or responded to the polls saying they wanted to watch. If that’s the case, then the conclusion cannot be supported on these premises. The argument falls apart.

But even with this first assumption, the conclusion still doesn’t yet follow. What does follow is that often people say one thing and do another. In other words, people are often hypocritical. But that’s not what the actual conclusion says. The actual conclusion says that people often “portray themselves as they wish to be perceived.” Where did that come from? Is being sick of those shows how they “wish to be perceived” or were they simply answering the poll questions without regard to how they “wish to be perceived”? If I tell you I don’t like ice cream, you can’t automatically assume that I wish to be perceived as someone who doesn’t like ice cream. Perhaps I’m just telling you that I don’t like ice cream and the thought never occurred to me that it would make me look bad. Seriously, what kind of degenerate doesn’t like ice cream? That’s the second assumption. At least some people who told the polls that they’re sick of the shows and don’t want to watch them anymore wish to be perceived as being sick of the shows and not wanting to watch anymore.

These two assumptions show up in Answer Choice (B) and Correct Answer Choice (E).

(B) goes after the first assumption and says that last year, “almost everyone” who said they’re sick of the shows and unwilling to watch anymore continued to watch. This is really helpful for the argument. But it’s not necessary. We don’t need “almost everyone.” We just need “some” people. Think about what “almost everyone” means. Yeah, it’s ambiguous but that doesn’t mean it has no obviously right and wrong interpretations. 95% would obviously be “almost everyone” and 60% would obviously not be “almost everyone.” But if it is in fact the case that 60% of those who said they’re sick of the shows yet watched anyway, then it's still really good for the argument. It’s not as good as 95% but it’s still good. That demonstrates (B) as unnecessary.

(E) goes after the second assumption and says that last year, “at least some” people who responded to the polls wished to be perceived as unwilling to watch the shows. That’s exactly right. If this were false, then that means nobody who responded to the polls wished to be perceived as unwilling to watch the shows. That would render the conclusion unsupportable on the basis of the premises.

Answer Choice (A) can be eliminated because of “everyone.” That’s even more unnecessary than “almost everyone” in (B). There’s another problem. (A) is trying to say that there must be an overlap between people who said they’re sick of the shows and people who said they’re unwilling to watch the shows. That’s not necessary. What we actually need is an overlap between either of those two sets with the set of people who in fact watched the shows.

Answer Choice (C) says “at least some,” which is good. The rest of it is not. (C) says at least some people who responded to the polls don’t believe that in their responses they’re portraying themselves as they actually were. In other words, some people were intentionally misrepresenting themselves through their response. Do we need that to be true? No. It’s fine if no one intentionally misrepresented themselves. They still could have unintentionally misrepresented themselves. The conclusion accommodated this already when it said “whether or not they’re aware of it.”

Answer Choice (D) says “no one” who responded to the polls portrayed themselves as they actually were. So everyone misrepresented themselves, whether they meant to or not. We don’t need this either. The argument doesn’t care if half of the people misrepresented themselves.