Before the printing press, books could be purchased only in expensive manuscript copies. The printing press produced ...
Julie-VJuly 16, 2019
Answer D
Hi LSAT Max!
I chose answer choice C because it undermines the part of the conclusion that mentions the dramatic jump in the number of people who learned how to read after books were being published on the printing press. I wasn't able to 100% eliminate D before I chose C, but would D be eliminated because it doesn't weaken the conclusion and might strengthen it if we consider that more people were learning how to read from books being shared in these informal reading clubs or libraries? Thank you in advance for the help!
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The author argues that there was a dramatic jump in the number of people who learned how to read in the years after the printing press books became available based on the fact that the public's demand for printed books was many times greater than demand had been for manuscript copies.
(D) has no impact on the validity of the argument because it only affirms the fact that the demand for printed books was great, and several people could use the same copy, i.e. more people actually read the books that the number of copies that were sold. This fact alone has no impact on the number of people who learned to read through because we cannot tell whether any of these people knew how to read before the printed books became available.
