Humorous television advertisements

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct69% picked this

   It takes for granted that nothing but humor can attract a person's attention and hold it long enough for

   Why this is right

   This describes the illegal backwards version of the 2nd sentence that the author was imagining to make her logic work: ~Humor → ~Grab attention to convey message Grabs attention to convey message → Humor We can tell the author was assuming this, because if you negate it and say, "Hey, author -- stuff besides humor can attract a person's attention and hold it long enough for a message to be conveyed", it would weaken the argument and make it seem like humorous ads are not the only effective ones.

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

   69%
2. B

   Doesn't Confuse6% picked this

   It confuses attracting a person's attention with holding a person's attention long enough for a

   While the 3rd sentence only talks about "conveying message" whereas the 2nd one talks about "attracting attention and holding it long enough to convey the message", the author isn't confusing them or making an illegal move there. The author thinks that effectiveness requires conveying a message. And conveying a message implicitly requires attracting a listener's attention and holding it long enough for the message to be conveyed. The author doesn't spell that out, but we wouldn't criticize her for that. We all understand that conveying a message requires getting someone's attention and holding it long enough for the message to be conveyed.

   6%
3. C

   Wrong Conditional20% picked this

   It treats a necessary condition for an advertisement's being effective as if it were

   The author committed a Necessary vs. Sufficient flaw with the 1st conditional (the one about humor / holding attention long enough). The author didn't do anything wrong with the second conditional, which was about what's required for an ad to be effective. The author establishes that a necessary condition of an ad being effective is that it conveys its message. The author never treated "conveying a message" as sufficient to make an argument effective. That would have sounded like, "For an ad to be effective it must convey its message. The new ad for Pop Tarts conveyed its message. Thus, the new ad for Pop Tarts was effective." This answer reflects the modern "Bait and Switch" trap answers that occur with famous flaws. They've been testing these same 10 flaws so much for nearly 100 LSATs, that they have to try to complicate how we process them. A trick they like using is presenting two conditional premises, so that they can write a trap answer that targets the conditional that was used correctly. We want to make sure we get specific with our thinking upfront about which of the two conditionals is actually being read backwards / opposite.

   20%
4. D

   Not Equivocation1% picked this

   It uses two senses of the term "effective" without

   This describes the famous Equivocation flaw, in which an author cites the same term/concept twice, as though it's being used consistently, even though it's really being used in two very different ways. We could equivocate with "effective" if one usage meant "it fulfilled its purpose" and another usage meant "it took effect on this date". But the two uses of effective in this argument are the same.

   1%
5. E

   Too Strong: only purpose4% picked this

   It takes for granted that an advertisement's only purpose is to

   Nothing in here talks about the purpose of an advertisement, let alone makes it seem like an advertisement only has one purpose.

   4%