Q23 - Magazine editor: I know that

[b91302310]

The correct answer is (C) but why (B) is wrong?

Could anyone help with this?

Thanks.

[aileenann]

There are two problems with (B). The first problem with (B) is that I am not sure it does succeed as a response to the magazine editor's concerns. In particular, while the response might not be affected by the magazine's credibility, there are other potential ways the credibility issue is still important to the magazine remaining an "effective advertising vehicule." For one thing, if people find the content to be trash, they'll just stop buying it altogether.

Another reason (B) is not the answer is that it doesn't provide any evidence that the magazine editor has underestimated the sophistication of the readers or that such sophistication is enough to carry the day. There are too many assumptions built into the argument at the moment for this to be solid.

I hope this helps!

[b91302310]

Yes I got it. The first problem with (B) is like taking a necessary condition (credibility) as the sufficient condition for certain result.(to remain an effective advertising vehicle).

Thanks again

[tamwaiman]

Both (B) and (C) are tempting to me.
Can someone please tell me why (B) is incorrect?
Thanks.

[giladedelman]

Thanks for the question!

The magazine editor concludes that it would be against advertisers' interest for the magazine to yield to their pressure and give their products favorable mention in the magazine's articles. This is based on two premises: to be an effective advertising vehicle, the magazine must have loyal readership; and that readership would be lost if readers suspect that the magazine is pandering to advertisers.

This seems like a pretty solid argument: the advertisers shouldn't pressure the magazine, because the magazine would just end up being worse for advertisements. But what if the benefits of having favorable mention in the articles outweighs the loss in advertising effectiveness? The editor seems to assume that this is not the case.

(C) is correct because it identifies this assumption. If favorable mention is not in the advertisers' best interests, it must be because it's less valuable than the continued effectiveness of advertising.

(B) is too extreme. The argument doesn't assume that the magazine can't give any favorable mention to its advertisers, but rather that if they shouldn't give in to the advertisers' demands for favorable mention.

(A) is too broad. This argument is specifically about favorable mention.

(D) is the opposite of what we want; the editor assumes that advertisements are more important.

(E) is out of scope. The argument is about the effect of giving in to the advertiser's request for favorable mention, not about advertisements themselves.

Does that answer your question?

[shaynfernandez]

A stimulus riddled in conditional logic, why does this not yield a correct result?

[giladedelman]

If we were to map out conditional statements, we'd get something like this from the two premises:

effective advertising --> loyal readership

pandering to advertisers --> ~loyal readership

Put them together and we get

pandering to advertisers --> ~loyal readership --> ~effective advertising

So we know, based on the premises, that if the magazine gives into advertisers' requests, it will no longer be an effective advertising vehicle. But to get from here to the conclusion that this would be against advertisers' interests, we need the assumption identified above.

[austindyoung]

(B) is too strong. Seems like it would be good for a sufficient assumption

[acechaowang]

For B, if you negate that, then it would be the magazine can give some favorable mention without compromising its reputation. But this leaves the premise given by the magazine editor untouched,since he stated that if the readers SUSPECT the integrity, which could still happen under the negated statement. SInce the negated B does not ruin the original argument, it therefore is wrong. C directly address the interest issue so it is the answer.

[raymondcezar]

I had trouble with this question as well. I chose B as the answer and I couldn't figure out why it was wrong. However, looking over the stimulus again, I noticed the same thing that the post just above mine stated, that the Magazine Editor explains that IF the readers suspect editorial integrity to be compromised, then readership will be lost. This leaves the possibility open that readers may NOT suspect editorial integrity to be compromised. As a result, and because answer choice B shows that the magazine cannot give any favorable mention without compromising its reputation, it is wrong.

[deedubbew]

Thanks for the question!

The magazine editor concludes that it would be against advertisers' interest for the magazine to yield to their pressure and give their products favorable mention in the magazine's articles. This is based on two premises: to be an effective advertising vehicle, the magazine must have loyal readership; and that readership would be lost if readers suspect that the magazine is pandering to advertisers.

This seems like a pretty solid argument: the advertisers shouldn't pressure the magazine, because the magazine would just end up being worse for advertisements. But what if the benefits of having favorable mention in the articles outweighs the loss in advertising effectiveness? The editor seems to assume that this is not the case.

(C) is correct because it identifies this assumption. If favorable mention is not in the advertisers' best interests, it must be because it's less valuable than the continued effectiveness of advertising.

(B) is too extreme. The argument doesn't assume that the magazine can't give any favorable mention to its advertisers, but rather that if they shouldn't give in to the advertisers' demands for favorable mention.

(A) is too broad. This argument is specifically about favorable mention.

(D) is the opposite of what we want; the editor assumes that advertisements are more important.

(E) is out of scope. The argument is about the effect of giving in to the advertiser's request for favorable mention, not about advertisements themselves.

Does that answer your question?

I thought that (B) is wrong because it is actually part of the editor’s evidence for her conclusion; it’s not an underlying assumption on which the argument relies. Am I wrong?

[einuoa]

Thanks for the question!

The magazine editor concludes that it would be against advertisers' interest for the magazine to yield to their pressure and give their products favorable mention in the magazine's articles. This is based on two premises: to be an effective advertising vehicle, the magazine must have loyal readership; and that readership would be lost if readers suspect that the magazine is pandering to advertisers.

This seems like a pretty solid argument: the advertisers shouldn't pressure the magazine, because the magazine would just end up being worse for advertisements. But what if the benefits of having favorable mention in the articles outweighs the loss in advertising effectiveness? The editor seems to assume that this is not the case.

(C) is correct because it identifies this assumption. If favorable mention is not in the advertisers' best interests, it must be because it's less valuable than the continued effectiveness of advertising.

(B) is too extreme. The argument doesn't assume that the magazine can't give any favorable mention to its advertisers, but rather that if they shouldn't give in to the advertisers' demands for favorable mention.

(A) is too broad. This argument is specifically about favorable mention.

(D) is the opposite of what we want; the editor assumes that advertisements are more important.

(E) is out of scope. The argument is about the effect of giving in to the advertiser's request for favorable mention, not about advertisements themselves.

Does that answer your question?

I thought that (B) is wrong because it is actually part of the editor’s evidence for her conclusion; it’s not an underlying assumption on which the argument relies. Am I wrong?

I don't think it's part of the evidence because it's phrased too extremely, the editor said that if readers suspect compromising of editorial integrity, then we would loose readership. But the editor doesn't actually say if editorial integrity will actually be compromised or not, maybe they will only write favorable mention to products they really like, which in that case, would not be a compromise. The editor only talks about reader's suspect of compromising editorial integrity, so the editor does not assume B.

Hope that helps!

[kumsayuya]

Originally got this wrong, but after reviewing I see why its incorrect. I'll give my two-cents.

• Advertisers want the magazine to give more mention to their products, but this would be bad
• To be good at advertising, need a loyal readership – and that would be diminished if readers thought our integrity was compromised by advertisers decisions

(A) Should NEVER be? This is too strong.. for all we know there is instances where this must be the case for the relationship between to two to be effective
(B) AH! I see now why this is wrong. Cannot give ANY favorable mention is too strong, because presumably, they are already giving some sort of favorable mention by advertising their stuff in the magazines – and their integrity hasn’t been compromised because well – they still have a loyal readership (the very thing they are attempting not to lose in this case). Even if they weren’t already giving favorable mention, can we really say that giving ANY favorable mention is impossible without compromising integrity? No we cannot, its simply too strong of an answer choice with this wording.
(C) If this weren’t true – then the advertisers would say “screw your magazine as an advertising vehicle as a whole – it helps us more when you just give us the more mentions that we want and are less of an effective vehicle as a whole!”
(D) It cannot assume this because it never talks about relative effectiveness of anything
(E) Can never pose any? Isn’t this the whole thing that they are saying CAN happen?! Opposite.

[WaltGrace1983]

(B) is too strong. Seems like it would be good for a sufficient assumption

I would disagree with this for the reasoning that it still doesn't attack the gap (which is why B isn't right here too).

Remain effective advertising vehicle -->
Have loyal readership -->
~(readers suspect editorial integrity has been compromised)

THUS...

Yielding to demands to give favorable mention would be against advertisers' interests

The argument essentially boils down to three assumptions. The argument assumes that:

(1) Remaining as an effective advertising vehicle is more important to the interests of advertisers than favorable mention
(2) Having a loyal readership is more important to the interests of advertisers than favorable mention
(3) Having readers belief that editorial integrity has not been compromised is more important to the interests of advertisers than favorable mention

This argument essentially relies on a term shift but why should we assume that any of this is more important to the advertisers than favorable mention of their products?

(B) Favorable mention --> Compromise reputation for editorial integrity. But so what? Maybe this is true; maybe this isn't true. What we really want to know though is whether or not this matters to the interests of the advertisers!

(C) If we negate this and say that, "Favorable mention of their products in articles is NOT of less value than the continued effectiveness of the magazine as an advertising vehicle," then the premises do not lead to the conclusion. You would essentially be left asking, "so then why bring up the whole 'effective advertising vehicle' argument." That is exactly what we want in a negated answer choice.

In short, the argument is assuming that being an effective advertising vehicle is important. Actually, it is really assuming (as C notes) that being an effective advertising vehicle is more important that simply giving favorable mention to the product. Otherwise, why bring up the premises to begin with?

As for the other incorrect answers...

(A) Don't need to discuss professional duties. Out of scope.
(D) Don't need to compare different forms of advertising to each other. After all, we still need something to do with interests of the advertisers.
(E) Actually quite the opposite. While we don't know anything about if whether or not these favorable mentions are paid, but I think it's safe to say that the magazine editor assumes that advertisements can SOMETIMES pose a threat.

[pu.deng]

I think I got why B is wrong, it is different with many answers easy to come up with.

For people saying it has something to do with the nuance between real "compromising " (as in answer B) and only "suspect" (as in the stimuli), I think this is not the point because B doesn't say favorable mention will lead to "compromising of INTEGRITY" but says "compromising of REPUTATION OF INTEGRITY". This is pretty much like what the stimuli says. If readers suspect its integrity and loss their readership, we can definitely say that the REPUTATION of integrity has been damaged, no matter if the INTEGRITY has been really hurt or not. So B is not wrong here.

For those who say B is so absolute SIMPLY because "IF the readers will suspect" in the stimuli leaves the room that favorable mention may not damage reputation so that's why B is wrong, they maybe simply miss that the question ask us to do. We are not gonna recapitulate the stimuli as we do when facing a MUST BE RIGHT question, we are facing an assumption question and we need to BRIDGE THE GAP. What does this mean? Think about it. If favorable mention doesn't necessarily lead to compromising, it may or may not, then the editor's argument will be destroyed. Why? If favorable mention may or may not damage our reputation, then why we should think favorable mention will be bad, and why not just post them anyway?

So here, we must ASSUME something, assume there is some compromising or suspect anyway in order for the argument to work. And this is the gap the editor leaves in the argument and we need to fix it, like what answer B is doing. So the stimuli leaves a room for favorable mention not to compromise the reputation of integrity doesn't render B wrong, but rather simply make B more attractive because this is the gap in the stimuli and we need to fix it.

So what else? Here it is! For assumption questions we need to ACCURATELY concatenate the main conclusion with its premise. What does the main conclusion says? It says "for us TO YIELD TO THEIR WISHES would be against their interests"! The author even doesn't try to prove ALL favorable mention will be against their interest. He/she is saying that we cannot YIELD TO THEIR WISHES. That is to say, there may be some favorable mention which don't represent us yielding to their wishes. Maybe we do this out of our sincere endorsement, and for that kind of favorable mention we don't have to assume it compromising anything for the whole argument to be wrong. We don't even have to touch that!

In other words, when the author is not trying to prove ALL favorable mentions are against the the advertisers' interest (he/she just tries to prove not to YIELD TO THEIR WISHES), we don't need to assume or prove ANY favorable mention will compromise something. This is not out of the sense that ANY is simply too strong, it is based on what the argument is trying to do.

[ConnorK264]

Hi,

I picked E because together with the stem, "at least once" and "more than once" would combine to mean that it MUST happen ONCE every 100,000 years. So if a region has produced an earthquake within "living memory" there would be almost a 0% chance that it would happen again in the life of the nuclear reactor if it were constructed. This was apparently incorrect.

Another poster said that "at least once" meant that I should consider it happening more than once, which makes C the only option instead of simply one I was considering along with E. Should I assume that this is the intent of the LSAT every time I see "at least once"?

Thank you in advance for any help that could be provided.

[AlisaS425]

After reading this thread, I also reviewed why (B) could be wrong, and thought a different reason as above.

Granted, (B) says "cannot give ANY favorable mention ..." is way too extreme for a necessary assumption. But comparing (B) with (C), it seems like there's another difference:
(B) "mag can't give favorable mention in its articles to its regular advertisers"
(C) "favorable mention of their (advertisers') products in the mag's articles ..."

Giving favorable mention to advertisers, and giving favorable mention to advertisers' products seems to be different (not sure if I'm right, hope some LSAT Geeks could help verify )