Press

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Press

by charu_mahajan » Tue Feb 26, 2013 8:52 am
Criticism that the press panders to public sentiment neglects to consider that the press is a profit-making institution. Like other private enterprises, it has to make money to survive. If press were not profit-making, who would support it? The only alternative is subsidy and, with it, outside control. It is easy to get subsidies for propaganda, but no one will subsidize honest journalism.

It can be properly inferred from the passage that if the press is

(A) not subsidized, it is in no danger of outside control
(B) not subsidized, it will not produce propaganda
(C) not to be subsidized, it cannot be a profit-making institution
(D) to produce honest journalism, it must be profit-making institution
(E) to make a profit, it must produce honest journalism

Category: Inference
Difficulty level: Medium
Source: Kaplan LSAT
OA: After some discussion

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by aditya8062 » Tue Feb 26, 2013 6:35 pm
there are two paths profit making institutions (PMI ) and subsidy if we go to subsidy then there is no honest journalism that means if we need honest journalism then we must have no subsidy that means we must have PMI hence D

PS i feel this question is not reflection of actual gmat [/b]

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by Tommy Wallach » Tue Feb 26, 2013 6:40 pm
Hey Guys,

As Charu says, this is an LSAT question. And as Aditya is correctly pointing out, LSAT questions do not accurately simulate the GMAT. You would think that because Logical Reasoning and Critical Reasoning are so similar, there wouldn't be a problem, but there is. It's actually right there in the names:

Logical Reasoning: Primarily about logic.
Critical Reasoning: Primarily about critical thinking.

This question is a perfect example of that. This is a string of logical statements:

If press not profit-making, must be subsidizied.
Subsidies --> outside control.
Outside control --> Propaganda/Not honest journalism

They result in an inference, answer choice (D):

Honest journalism --> profit-making

But though the GMAT also has inference questions, they will never be based on a string of logical statements, as this one is. This isn't to say there's nothing to be gained from practicing LSAT questions, only that they are testing something slightly different from what the GMAT is testing, so you have to be careful.

Good luck!

-t
Tommy Wallach, Company Expert
ManhattanGMAT

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