Unplugged Practice Test: Logical Reasoning Set 2, Question 5 (Sufficient Assumption)
Taking the test? Finish it first. This page shows the answer.
- Sufficient Assumption questions ask for a premise that would guarantee the conclusion.
- Look for the choice that, once added, forces the conclusion. It often connects a term in the evidence to a term in the conclusion.
- Every question on this test is original, written to the same logical skeletons as real questions, and Steve checked every one himself before release.
The question
Historian: Several accounts hold that the earliest organization other than the national telegraph office to send out a scheduled news broadcast directed at the general public was station WKLV, in 1922. Those accounts are mistaken. In 1919, a printers' strike halted every newspaper in the city of Vernholt. During the strike, an amateur wireless club there read the day's dispatches aloud from its transmitter at a fixed hour every evening, and the club kept up the practice for 11 weeks.
5. The historian's conclusion follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?
- (A)The wireless club's 1919 evening readings were meant to reach anyone who owned a receiving set, not club members alone.
- (B)WKLV's 1922 news broadcast was not occasioned by a work stoppage at any newspaper.
- (C)The national telegraph office sent out no scheduled news reports of any kind at any point during the 1910s.
- (D)Every organization that sent news by wireless in that era kept a written log of everything that it transmitted.
- (E)Station WKLV had no means of obtaining daily dispatches at any time before 1922.
AWhy (A) is correct
The historian needs the 1919 wireless club readings to count as the kind of broadcast the accounts credit to WKLV, one aimed at the general public rather than at some narrower audience. (A) supplies that: the club's evening readings were meant to reach anyone who owned a receiving set, not just its own members. That puts the club's 11 weeks of nightly readings 3 years ahead of WKLV's 1922 broadcast, so the accounts are wrong.
Why the other answers are wrong
BWhy (B) is wrong
(B) is irrelevant, because whether WKLV's 1922 broadcast was tied to a work stoppage says nothing about whether the club's earlier readings reached the public.
CWhy (C) is wrong
(C) doesn't matter, since the telegraph office is already carved out of the comparison in the accounts the historian is disputing.
DWhy (D) is wrong
(D) adds a recordkeeping requirement the argument never needs; nothing turns on whether transmissions were logged.
EWhy (E) is wrong
(E) is beside the point: how WKLV got its dispatches before 1922 has no bearing on whether the club's 1919 readings targeted the general public.
Common questions
What type of question is this?
Sufficient Assumption. Sufficient Assumption questions ask for a premise that would guarantee the conclusion.
How do I get better at Sufficient Assumption questions?
Look for the choice that, once added, forces the conclusion. It often connects a term in the evidence to a term in the conclusion. The free LSAT cheat sheet lists the wrong-answer patterns to watch for on every type.
