Q6 - Cigarette smoking has been

[cyruswhittaker]

For this question I was stuck between A and E. Is A incorrect because of the part where it says "to show people doing things" because it's not explicit whether the advertisements do this or not?

Thanks

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Exactly.

The argument is about what advertisements "should be allowed to show," whereas answer choice (E) is about what the advertisements "should promote." It's possible to show something without actually promoting it.

Great work!

[peg_city]

I'm still not getting why E is right here.

The opposite (in LSAT terms) of 'unhealthy' is 'not unhealthy.' Therefore, if E said 'Advertising should not promote unhealthy products' then it would be right. (EG There could be health neutral products)

Which is why I chose A. Because that's exactly what it says.

I know I'm wrong. But why?

[timmydoeslsat]

I'm still not getting why E is right here.

The opposite (in LSAT terms) of 'unhealthy' is 'not unhealthy.' Therefore, if E said 'Advertising should not promote unhealthy products' then it would be right. (EG There could be health neutral products)

Which is why I chose A. Because that's exactly what it says.

I know I'm wrong. But why?

We want a principle that helps to justify the conclusion of this argument.

Argument core:

Cigarette smoking has been shown to be a health hazard

---> Governments should ban all advertisements that promote smoking.

Not a very difficult core

We need to be on high alert anytime somebody says "SHOULD." We need justification for why we "SHOULD" or "SHOULD NOT" do something.

It is sometimes the case on the LSAT that we will find a principle that goes above and beyong what is needed to justify our conclusion.

Such is the case with E.

Cig smoking has been shown to be a health hazard. Therefore, we know that it is NOT a healthful product.

If it is established that ads should promote ONLY healthful products, then the conclusion is supported.

You are right that the logical opposite of unhealthy is NOT unhealthy.

As you can see, this is a principle that is NOT necessary, but can be thought of as sufficient. It gets the job done.

Choice A is wrong because we do not know the content of this smoking ads. Perhaps it is the case that it does not even show people smoking! It just shows Joe Cool on his motorcycle enjoying life riding off into the sunset and at the end of the ad it says "Grab a pack of Joe Smokes and you'll be like Joe Cool!"

The ad did not show the guy smoking.

[minhtientm249]

I know why A is incorrect, but I have trouble seeing why E is correct.

If we need to choose an answer choice that completely closes the gap, then I think E did not do the job because even though it says that Ads should promote only healthy products, it still leaves the gap between should and being banned. Ok, because ads should promote only healthy product, it should not promote cig. But then it doesn't address the conclusion that cig ads should be banned.

Thank you.

[Turismo1]

I know why A is incorrect, but I have trouble seeing why E is correct.

If we need to choose an answer choice that completely closes the gap, then I think E did not do the job because even though it says that Ads should promote only healthy products, it still leaves the gap between should and being banned. Ok, because ads should promote only healthy product, it should not promote cig. But then it doesn't address the conclusion that cig ads should be banned.

Thank you.

I agree with this, but I guess I'm missing something here. Compared to the overwhelming majority of lsat questions, this one seems a little off the mark.

Choice E seems like the closest fit (compared to the other answer choices), but still seems too broad to justify (in principle) the conclusion (banning) drawn in the stimulus. I say this because it seems like in many other preptests, an answer choice like E would have been wrong for not being specific enough by not addressing the banning. I can explain why choice A is wrong, but not why E is correct.

Can one of you experts please shed more light no this? In my quest to master the lsat, this question has me mad confused.

[ohthatpatrick]

This question only asks us to strengthen the reasoning, not to logically prove the conclusion.

So you all are correct to think that we have not logically proven that "govt.'s should ban all ads promoting smoking".

But (E) does strengthen the argument. As Timmy mentioned, (E) at least gives us the ability to establish that ads SHOULD not promote smoking.

We would still need a principle that said "governments should ban activities that should not be done" to actually cement the logic of the argument.

Part of the confusion here might arise from the fact that in MOST principle-strengthen questions, the correct answer does happen to function as a Sufficient Assumption. But we can see from the wording of the question stem, the test is not assigning us "prove the conclusion" as our task. It's just asking us to "strengthen the argument".

Only (E) strengthens, because only (E) makes a link between the premise idea "smoking is a health hazard" and the conclusion idea "ads that promote smoking should be banned".

Hope this helps.

[Turismo1]

^ thanks a ton for that. I get it now

[jeanlouisf]

A is wrong because the stimulus explicitly states that "the government should ban all advertisements that PROMOTE smoking", while this answer choice stated that an advertisement should not be allowed to show people doing things that endanger their health.

The meaning of an advertisement can be different from what it shows. Like a commercial showing to kids driving around drunk, with the message "don't drive and drink at the same time."

Thus E, is the correct answer choice. Plus, the keyword needed is "promote" or something that para-phrases this term.

[uhdang]

While I was looking at this question, I thought that contrapositive of E) rather looks close to the stimulus, thus strengthening the same idea.

The reason I was reluctant to choose E) was because of the difference in positive/negative connotation compared with the stimulus. Whereas the stimulus talks about "banning", or negative connotation, E) pertains "promoting", or positive connotation. Considering other question types such as "parallel reasoning", having different attitude has been a good hint for rejecting it from being a contender. So, while I was deciding between A) and E), and noticing a subtle difference in saying "doing things that endanger their health", I was also reluctant to confidently go for E).

To sum up, is it a valid approach to use "contrapositive" in this case or other similar cases?

[ohthatpatrick]

I might be confused by your question about the contrapositive.

A conditional statement and its contrapositive are literally just one thing.

A --> ~B
B --> ~A

Which one is the original and which is the contrapositive?

Neither. Both. Who cares? It's totally arbitrary which one you name the contrapositive. Basically, if you have a reference point, an initial conditional, then you can contrapose it to look at it a different way. But there's no primacy given to either way of writing it.

So your question sort of struck me as similar to, "When I put a quarter in the parking meter, does it matter whether heads or tails is on the right or left?"

As you saw, (E) can be read as
IF it's not a healthful product, THEN ads shouldn't promote it.

I see where you're feeling a middle ground between banning something vs. just not promoting it.

One response to that is simply that the answer doesn't have to be perfect to strengthen. We know that cigarettes are not a healthful product. So (E) allows us to say "advertisements shouldn't promote cigarettes." That's a healthy step in the direction of "govt's should ban all advertisements that promote smoking."

Another way to respond to the "banning" vs. "not promoting" nuance is to mention that advertisements inherently promote. That is their essential function and nature. So when we say an ad shouldn't promote smoking, it's basically the same as saying "there shouldn't be ads for smoking".

You can't really have "an ad for smoking that doesn't promote smoking".

All that's missing to get us from that normative principle to the actual conclusion is for the government to get off its butt and write a law that enforces our moral judgment.

[uhdang]

A conditional statement and its contrapositive are literally just one thing.

A --> ~B
B --> ~A

Which one is the original and which is the contrapositive?

Neither. Both.

Your reply above felt like a fresh hit in my head. A very good one Also, rest of your answer clarified my question completely.
Thanks, Patrick.

[DevinD793]

With answer choice E and the idea that the inverse of health is unhealthy. How can we conclude that only healthy products should be promoted. Isn't there logically the possibility that some products maybe neutral to your health. IDK like filing folders.