Logical Reasoning

PT109 · S3 · Q7 Unlike newspapers in the old days

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Unlike newspapers in the old days, today’s newspapers and televised news programs are full of stories about murders and assaults in our city.

Conclusion (conclude)

Violent crime is now out of control, and, to be safe from personal attack, one should not leave one's home except for absolute necessities.

Evidence

Unlike newspapers in the old days, today's newspapers and televised news programs are full of stories about murders and assaults in our city.

Evaluate

This argument presents a Curious Difference (an asymmetric comparison) in the evidence. Does the author then assume some causal interpretationof that evidence? Yes!

CURIOUS FACT: How come today's papers and TV news are so much more full of murder/assault stories?

EXPLANATION: Because there's so much more murder and assault these days!

The argument observes that there's an increase in media coverage of violent crime and concludes that violent crime itself is out of control and the city's safety has drastically changed.

The argument assumes that because there's more media coverage of violent crime stories today compared to the past, the actual incidence of violent crime must have increased proportionally.

To weaken this conclusion, we want to consider alternative explanations for the increase in media coverage that do not involve an actual increase in violent crime.

Goal

Let's find an answer that suggests an alternate reason for the observed change in media content, rather than an actual increase in the amount or rate of violent crimes, or an answer that undermines the plausibility of the author's belief that violent crime has gotten much worse in recent times.

7.

Which one of the following, if true, would cast the most serious doubt on the conclusion?

  1. Correct

    Newspapers and televised news programs

    Why this is right

    This provides an alternate explanation for why violent crime stories are more frequent in today's media. It's not necessarily that violent crime is more rampant, but that media coverage has expanded, making it seem more prevalent. In other words, the paper is full of murder stories not because there are more murders but because a given murder nowadays is given more comprehensive coverage and so it takes up more space in the paper than a murder report would have back in the day. More pages per crime, not more crimes occurring. This could also mean they cover more types of violent crime than they used to. So it would be "more types of crime reported on, not a greater number of crimes occurring".

    Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    69% picked this

  2. National data show that violent

    Opposite (if anything)

    If anything, this could potentially be used to argue that violent crime is indeed out of control, aligning with the conclusion rather than opposing it.

    2% picked this

  3. Police records show that people

    Irrelevant Comparison

    The argument doesn't care where crimes occur. The conclusion is saying that crime is out of control everywhere in the city. We're trying to assess whether current crime is worse than past crime. This answer is about whether nearby current crime is worse than distant current vrime.

    5% picked this

  4. Murder comprised a larger proportion

    Irrelevant Comparison

    The argument doesn't care what proportion of all violent crimes are murder. It's making a claim about whether the entire category of violent crime has greatly increased recently. The argument hasn't made any claims or assumptions about how big the different pieces of the violent crime pie are.

    14% picked this

  5. News magazines play a more

    No Impact

    This might seem like an alternate explanation for why violent crime is reported on these days. However, this is about news magazines, whereas the curious fact was about newspapers and TV news shows. This answer doesn't offer any explanation for why newspapers and news TV shows are so much more full of violent crime stories than they used to be. We would have to assume that "if magazines play a more important role, then so do papers and tv shows, and if papers/TV play a more important role then they will start reporting more on crime, even if it's the same amount of crime as before". The correct answer directly gives us "they start reporting more on crime, even if it's the same amount of crime as before", without requiring as many assumptions.

    11% picked this

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