The commercial news media emphasize exceptional

Answer choices

1. A

   Unsupported Comparison0% picked this

   Print media, such as newspapers and magazines, are a better source of information than

   We don't have info to support a comparison between different flavors of commercial media. It's always dealt with as an entire category in the stimulus.

   0%
2. B

   Unsupported Causal Relationship4% picked this

   The emphasis given in the commercial news media to major catastrophes is dictated by the public’s

   Tempting, because that's probably the "In Real Life" explanation for this phenomenon. But nothing in the stimulus suggests this causal relationship, and we have to stick to the text.

   4%
3. C

   Unsupported Comparison7% picked this

   Events over which people feel they have no control are generally perceived as more dangerous than those which people feel

   We don't have any info to support a comparison between events within vs. outside our control. Common sense tells us that we have more control over our vehicles than we do over airplanes, but car crashes are still outside of our control to some degree. And the perception of danger (aka risk) is only attributed to the degree of media coverage in the stimulus, so it isn't well supported to attribute risk to something else (our perception of our degree of control of over the situation).

   7%
4. D

   Correct84% picked this

   Where commercial news media constitute the dominant source of information, public perception of risk does

   Why this is right

   This one is tricky because it posits a conditional relationship (where there is X, there is Y), and the last part of the answers reads very strong (does not reflect). But we predicted that the two statements in the stimulus could be connected to derive that commercial media was giving the public a mistaken impression of the risk posed by car vs. plane crashes, so it stands to reason that if that's the dominant form of media, the public perception of risk, at least vis a vis this one thing, doesn't reflect the actual risk posed. Remember, ruling out language like "does not reflect" isn't actually strong. It has a very low burden of proof. All we need to support a claim that X doesn't reflect Y is a single instance in which X and Y don't match up.

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

   84%
5. E

   Unsupported Comparison4% picked this

   A massive outbreak of cholera will be covered more extensively by the news media than will the occurrence of a

   This one starts out strong: a massive cholera outbreak sounds like an exceptional event, which we'd expect to get more media coverage than a more common event, even if the more common one is actually riskier. That would be a well supported application of the principle in the stimulus. But a rarer but less serious disease isn't a good match for "common but riskier": in fact, it's pretty much the opposite. Strong start but poor finish is a classic LSAT trap!

   4%