October 2015 LSAT Section 2 Question 24

It has been said that authors who write in order to give pleasure cannot impart to their readers the truth of their s...

alannadels on April 16, 2022

Why is D correct and not C?

I am confused as to why D is correct. When I look at C, however, it makes sense to me that the sales of the book would be higher if they were pleasurable. Hence, the readers would have to be unconcerned bout the truth of the book's contents given that they would most likely be untrue (according to the argument).

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Emil-Kunkin on April 21, 2022

Hi alannadels,

We are looking for a required assumption, something that the author must believe if their argument is to be true. Lets see if the author must agree with C. One way to do this is to negate the answer choice. If the negation destroys the argument then that statement was a necessary assumption.

We can negate C by saying that "readers are often concerned about the truth of a book's contents" This does not destroy the argument. In fact- it slightly strengthens the argument by showing that the outcome of people reading and buying books that are untrue is unlikely.

D, however, is something the author must believe. We could negate D as "a book will sometimes give readers pleasure even if the author did not intend that result." If this is true, the author's argument makes no sense. The connection between authors writing to give pleasure and readers finding books pleasurable is severed.