Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT156 S4 Q9 ExplanationJournalists often claim that their investigation

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Full official LSAT questions are available through LawHub. This page provides LSAT Lab's explanation, strategy, and review tools without republishing the full official question.

Stimulus

Journalists often claim that their investigation of the private lives of political leaders is an effort to improve society by forcing the powerful to conform to the same standards of conduct as the less powerful. In reality, however, the tactic is detrimental to society. It makes public everyone else cynical about the character of their leaders.

What this question is testing

Role

Conclusion

The author thinks journalistic snooping into politicians' private lives is bad for society.

Evidence

It makes politicians focus on optics and makes the rest of us cynical about leaders.

Evaluate

The cited claim is what journalists say they are doing — improving society. The author quotes it not to agree with it, but to set it up as the justification before pivoting to the actual consequences.

Goal

Find the answer that captures: this is the rationale offered for a practice that the argument concludes is actually harmful.

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The question
9.

The claim that journalistic investigation of the private lives of political leaders is an effort to improve society plays which one of the following

Answer choices, explained

  1. Bad Description41% picked this

    It is a claim that the argument attempts

    The argument does not directly refute the cited claim. It does not argue that journalists are insincere or that they are not in fact trying to improve society. Instead, it shifts to a different question — the actual consequences of the practice — and concludes the practice is harmful regardless of the journalists' stated aim. So the cited claim is not really being refuted; it is being sidelined.

  2. Correct52% picked this

    It mentions a justification that is sometimes offered for a practice that, the argument concludes,

    Why this is right

    This describes the role exactly. The cited claim is the justification journalists offer for the practice — they say they investigate private lives to improve society. The argument's conclusion is that the practice is in fact detrimental to society. So the cited statement names a justification, and the argument goes on to conclude that the practice that justification supports has undesirable consequences.

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

  3. Bad Description2% picked this

    It is cited as evidence often given for an assertion that the argument

    The argument does not conclude that the journalists' claim is false. It does not address whether journalists really are trying to improve society. The conclusion is about the consequences of the practice, not the truth of the journalists' stated motive. This answer mischaracterizes both the role and the conclusion.

  4. Opposite1% picked this

    It describes a phenomenon that, according to the argument, is much less damaging to society

    The argument concludes the practice is more damaging than journalists imply, not less. Journalists frame it as a benefit; the author calls it detrimental. This answer reverses the direction of the conclusion.

  5. Bad Description4% picked this

    It gives an example of a phenomenon that the argument contends has very different effects from those it is generally

    The cited claim is not described as one that "everyone" assumes, and the argument is not contrasting the practice's actual effects against a universally held assumption. The justification is presented as something journalists in particular offer — not a popular consensus. This answer overgeneralizes the source of the assumption.

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