LSAT Explanation PT 40, S1, Q12: Several legislators claim that the public

LSAT Question Stem

The reasoning in the argument is flawed in that the argument 

Logical Reasoning Question Type

This is a Flaw question. 

Correct Answer

The correct answer to this question is D. 

LSAT Question Complete Explanation

First, let's break down the argument in the passage. The argument starts with the claim made by several legislators that the public finds many current movies to be morally offensive due to their violent content. The author then opposes this claim by presenting a survey conducted by a movie industry guild. According to the survey, only 17 percent of respondents thought that movies are overly violent, and only 3 percent found any recent movie morally offensive. The author concludes that the legislators have misrepresented public opinion. The structure of the argument is as follows:

Premise: Legislators claim that the public finds many current movies morally offensive due to violence.

Premise: A survey by a movie industry guild shows that only 17% of respondents think movies are overly violent, and only 3% find any recent movie morally offensive.

Conclusion: The legislators have misrepresented public opinion.

An "Evaluate" question for this argument could be: "Are the respondents of the survey representative of the general public's opinion?"

Now let's discuss the answer choices for the question, which asks us to identify the flaw in the argument's reasoning.

a) The argument does not attempt to undermine the legislators' credibility. Instead, it presents survey data to counter the claim made by the legislators.

b) The argument is based on survey results, which reflect the opinions of the respondents. It does not rely on subjective judgments of moral offensiveness but rather on the data collected from the survey.

c) The argument is about whether movies are considered morally offensive by the public, not about the potential effects of violent movies on antisocial behavior. Therefore, this is not a flaw in the argument's reasoning.

d) This answer choice correctly identifies the flaw in the argument. The survey respondents are described as seeing far more movies than the average moviegoer, which suggests that they may not be representative of the general public's opinion. This biased sample could lead to an inaccurate representation of public sentiment.

e) The argument does not presume that the people surveyed based their responses on a random sampling of movies. The issue with the argument is the potential bias in the sample of respondents, not the movies that they watched.

In conclusion, the correct answer choice is (d), as it accurately identifies the flaw in the argument's reasoning - generalizing from a sample that is unlikely to be representative of public sentiment.