September 2009 LSAT Section 5 Question 12

Sahira: To make a living from their art, artists of great potential would have to produce work that would gain wides...

Julie-V on July 29, 2019

(A) and (D)

Hi LSAT Max, I was pretty confident answer choice (D) was correct :( After looking back, I think I see the flaw with (D). Sahira's conclusion about the gov. subsidizing artists is a jump from the premises given because there's no connection between premise and conclusion. Does Rahima bridge the gap, which is why his/her argument is making an implicit assumption? Thank you in advance for the help!

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Irina on July 29, 2019

@Julie,

Let's briefly look at the stimulus.

S: To make a living from art, artists would have to produce work that is popular instead of their best work. That is why governments are justified in subsidizing artists.

There are two assumptions here:
(1) the artists cannot gain popular acclaim/ make a living from their best work.
(2) the government is justified in subsidizing artists so they can produce their best work.

R: This argument depends on claiming that to gain widespread popular acclaim, artists must produce something other than their best work; but this need not be true.

R explicitly attacks one of S implicit assumptions (1) as stated in the correct answer choice (A).
(D) is wrong because R questions of S' assumptions rather than using her premises and reaching alternative conclusions. For this answer choice to be correct, R's response would have to read something like that:

To make a living from art, artists would have to produce work that is popular instead of their best work. So, artists should find another source of income.

Does this make sense?
Let me know if you have any other questions.

Isabel-Zuniga on May 26, 2020

I think what is confusing me is that I didn't think the assumption was implicit?