Journalism's purpose is to inform people about matters

Question

Journalism's purpose is to inform people about matters relevant to the choices they must make. Yet, clearly, people often buy newspapers or watch television news programs precisely because they contain sensationalistic gossip about people whom they will never meet and whose business is of little relevance to their lives.

Which one of the following most logically completes the argument?

A. is at least sometimes included for nonjournalistic reasons

B. prevents those news media from achieving their purpose

C. is more relevant to people's lives now than it used to be

D. should not be thought of as a way of keeping an audience entertained

E. is of no value to people who are interested in journalism

LSAT

vineethk929 · Answer

Imo..a..all others are out of scope

Sent from my SM-J700F using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

AshutoshB · Answer

Question Type:
Inference (Fill-In)

Stimulus Breakdown:
Papers are supposed to inform people on important stuff. However, people often buy papers because of celebrity gossip (which isn't important). This sensationalism is…

Answer Anticipation:
The gossip isn't included to hit the papers' purpose. Since the stimulus states that people buy the papers for the gossip, a good way to combine these two statements is to say that the gossip is included to drive sales.

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis: 
(A) Bam! Right off the bat. This gossip can't fulfill journalism's purpose, so it must be included for some other reason. I picked a specific purpose in my prephrase, and this answer is more generic, but it serves the same purpose as what I was looking for.

(B) Degree. A newspaper can contain both useful information and celebrity gossip. "prevents" is too strong.

(C) Unwarranted comparison. The stimulus doesn't talk about today vs. the past.

(D) If anything, opposite. It seems as if the gossip is there to entertain/titillate while possibly trying to slip some important information to the reader.

(E) Degree. If it gets people to buy the paper and read the informational section, the gossip could serve a purpose. " o purpose" is too strong.

GMAT215 · Answer

Experts pls give your inputs.. i could not make any understanding.. may be i am not yet good at tackling such question.. if that is the case.. what should i do.. i mean any strategies to solve such questions?? or i am overthinking..

GMATNinja · Answer

GMAT215 , if the problem you're facing is just that you're having a hard time reading the passages themselves, there's no magic bullet that will solve that issue. You'll just have to become better -- in general -- at reading these tougher passages.  This general guide to RC  might help, especially some of the links toward the end of the article.

Also, keep in mind that this is an LSAT question, which are generally a bit tougher than the GMAT in terms of the difficulty of the language. You can read more about the LSAT in  this article  -- but you might want to focus on some of the GMAT materials first.

I hope this helps!

GMAT215 · Answer

thanks alot Sir.

BALAGURU · Answer

the question stem says
"Journalism's purpose is to inform people about    matters relevant to the choices   t hey must make"

And there is YET in the next sentence
" 
Yet, clearly, people often buy newspapers or watch television news programs precisely because they contain sensationalistic gossip about people whom they will never meet and whose business is of little relevance to their lives
"
  something contradictory to the Journalism principle. i.e, informing people about the matter that is not relevant

therefore, 
the sensationalistic gossip contained in newspapers and television news programs ________
  says something against the Journalism   ==>  PRETHINKING

Option A matches

abhinav261289 · Answer

How to eliminate option E here ?

The people who are interested in journalism will derive no value out of sensationalistic gossip.

ayushgmatclub1 · Answer

Yes I need help with this too. If we do not bring any additional info from outside, how can we eliminate E?

acegmat20 · Answer

Here the question is not about people deriving value from journalism but about why the newspapers are including sensational gossip when that is not what journalism is about. This is an  Out of Scope  answer choice.

rajatyadav1994 · Answer

The statement above seems to imply that journalism's purpose and the publication of sensationalistic gossip are sufficient conditions for news programs but not necessary. Hence, the right answer should establish just this fact. Ans choice A seems to does that.

I would assume if the premise had been that "Any news program is one that informs people about matters relevant to the choices they must make." In such a case, where informing on decisions is necessary to news programs, we would have had to establish whether gossip or sensationalistic news services have a role in guiding decisions, and in such a situation, Option A would not be one that could have completed the passage.

Please let me know if my understanding is correct.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

rajatyadav1994

Sufficient conditions aren't really a factor here. A sufficient condition is something that, on its own, can 100% establish some other fact. So if we know that "All journalism is informative," knowing that something is journalism is *sufficient* for us to conclude that it's informative. So we can't say something is "a sufficient condition for a news program."

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

By the way, this question is missing its question stem, which should read "Which one of the following most logically completes the argument?"

Bunuel · Answer

Added the question. Thank you!

Journalism's purpose is to inform people about matters

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GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

Journalism's purpose is to inform people about matters

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