Logical Reasoning

PT121 · S1 · Q6 The public interest comprises many

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The public interest comprises many interests and the broadcast media must serve all of them.

Facts

rule The public interest comprises many interests, and broadcast media must serve all of them.

pivot Most viewers might prefer action shows to opera, but constant action shows on every channel is not in the public interest.

Evaluate

Since the blank is prefaced by a Conclusion indicator (thus), we're treating this like Most Supported. We want to pick the provable takeaway.

We're given a mix of a rule and a specific case to consider. The author correctly concludes that if some people would prefer opera, and the media must serve all interests, then a stream of 100% action shows would serve all the interests.

Goal

It's hard to guess where this is going, since the author's third sentence already made a correct conclusion based on the first two sentences.

Maybe it'll say, "Thus, the media should include at least some opera programming?

6.

Which one of the following most logically completes the argument?

  1. Correct

    broadcasters’ obligations are not satisfied

    Why this is right

    Whenever we see the trigger buried in the backend of the sentence, we should make ourselves read it by starting with the trigger. If broadcasters only looked to popularity, then in a world where most people prefer action to opera, they would choose to air action shows. But we know this would leave the opera people out in the cold, which means the broadcasters did not serve their obligation to serve everyone's interests. Since they are obligated to serve everyone's interests, they can't only look to popular stuff. They have to consider that some people have unpopular interests, like opera (R.I.P. Timothee Chalamet)

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

    75% picked this

  2. television networks should broadcast more

    Too Strong

    We don't know what the current status quo of broadcasting is. It might already be serving all public interests. The author's premises were hypothetical. WHAT IF we lived in a world where most people preferred action to opera. It would HYPOTHETICALLY be bad if we had a constant stream of action shows on all channels. The author isn't saying we actually have a constant stream of action shows on all channels, so we have no evidence that she's perturbed by the status quo and thinks it should change.

    2% picked this

  3. the public interest should be

    Out of Scope

    The argument is about programming schedules across the broadcast media as a whole, not about how individual producers develop new programs. Whether public interest enters the development of any specific program is a different topic from whether the overall mix of programming serves the public interest.

    7% picked this

  4. the popularity of a television

    Out of Scope

    The argument never mentions artistic quality. It is about whether the public interest is served — which is about diverse interests, not about the quality of any one show.

    0% picked this

  5. broadcast media could be rightly

    Too Strong

    This would be fine if it replaced "only if" with "if". We would agree that "IF all channels carried mostly action shows, then we'd have a problem". But this says that's the ONLY WAY we'd have a problem. That's not accurate. We'd also have a problem if all channels carried mostly cooking shows, or mostly cartoons, etc.

    15% picked this

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