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October 2015 LSAT Section 2 Question 25

It is likely that most of the new television programs Wilke & Wilke produce for this season will be canceled. Mos...

cjahangiri on December 3, 2019

Why D and not B?

I was torn between the two but ultimately decided to go with B because I felt "All" was too strong.

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BenMingov on December 3, 2019

Hi Cjahangiri, thanks for the question!

For a strengthen question, we do not need to worry that a word like "all" is too strong in the context that you did. We should take the answer choice and examine whether or not it would strengthen the argument, it does not need to reflect the argument's tone because it is an additional premise that (hopefully) if added would lend support.

In this case, if all of the new shows that they produced last year that were cancelled were police dramas, then it is definitely likely that most of the new shows they produced this year will be cancelled because police dramas are not popular recently and most new shows produced last year were cancelled. This would make the prediction quite reasonable.

Answer choice B doesn't strengthen the prediction that most new shows will be cancelled this year. This is because, by saying that last year most of the shows they produced were police dramas, does not tell us if they were new or old shows, nor does it tell us whether they were popular or not. The discussion is about new shows being produced and uses reasoning about popularity of police shows in recent years. Perhaps the network is producing more seasons of an established and very popular show, but that doesn't inform us whether or not the new police shows will be cancelled and especially does not help us determine whether most of the new shows they produce will be cancelled.

Additionally, the "most" is an issue. If most of the shows they produced last year are police shows, and most police shows are unpopular as of late. Then we cannot conclude that most shows overall will be cancelled.

E.g. 55% of the shows they produce are police dramas. Most of these unpopular (e.g. 40%). We cannot conclude that most shows are cancelled because we have no information about the other programs.

This is a more involved problem, but I hope this helped. Please let me know if you have any other questions.