The rise of book megastores in the 1990s increased sales of best-sellers, but decreased sales of less commercial, mor...

JerryYu on September 5, 2022

Hi I am not a LSATMax tutor, but I may provide some insights into this question.

The conclusion of this passage is that "The rise of book megastores in the 1990s increased sales of best-sellers, but decreased sales of less commercial, more literary books," and therefore, the author attempts to build an argument around this comparison between "arising best-sellers" and "decreased less commercial, more literary books" and how "book megastores" have contributed to this phenomena. The evidence presented is increased "best-selling hardcover titles," at a nearly doubled rate, and megastores' role in helping this increased sales.

The problem here is that the evidence narrows itself down to megastores' influence on "hardcovers" publications, but what about non-hardcover? What if "less commercial" books are published more often in paperback (or digital) rather than hardcovers? Then does the evidence presented by the author, that megastores contributing to increased sales of hardcover books, have the same level of power to back up the conclusion? I don't think so. Thus, answer C is correct, because it points out a weakness in the relationship between the evidence presented and the conclusion it intended to support.

Emil-Kunkin on September 12, 2022

This is exactly right! The argument zooms in on hardcover books, but C presents a possible alternative to the decline of literary fiction- maybe it just shifted from hardcover to paperback.