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Every once in a while, LSAT Logical Reasoning can help you answer some pressing real-life questions. To see how, try out this sample problem.

Facebook Publicist: Facebook is a social networking website that allows people to connect with—or “befriend”—one another through a variety of online means that includes video-sharing, the posting of personal status updates, and the exhibition of private collections of photographs. The Facebook philosophy exploits the findings of a recent survey that has proven conclusively that humans have a pathological need to connect to as many other humans as possible. The same survey also showed that, despite the implications of the preceding statement, people tend to avoid maintaining real-life (non-online) friendships because of the gross demands these real-life friendships place on their time and lifestyle. In light of this information, we expect people to maintain friendships on Facebook that they otherwise would not maintain in real life.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the publicist’s argument?

A) The cited survey included a large majority of the internet population.
B) People often maintain Facebook friendships for business networking purposes, even when they would not cultivate such relationships in real life.
C) In real life, people’s flaws are often more apparent than they seem on Facebook.
D) A Facebook friendship is less time-consuming and interruptive of lifestyle than a real-life friendship.
E) The availability of a variety of interesting features makes people more likely to spend time communicating with their friends on Facebook than they would in real life.

Think you have it? Check out the answer and full explanation after the jump.

Explanation:

Always read the question stem first; that way you’ll know what to look for when you’re tackling the prompt. Words like “required,” “depends on,” or “relies on” tell you that you’re dealing with a necessary assumption question (where the assumption has to be true for the argument to be valid) instead of a sufficient assumption question (where the assumption completes the argument).

Here, the publicist argues that people’s innate need for companionship and their simultaneous avoidance of “gross demands…on their time and lifestyle” encourages them to maintain relationships on Facebook (online) that they would not maintain in real life (non-online).

This conclusion depends on the fact that Facebook friendships require fewer demands on “time and lifestyle” than do real-life friendships. If this were not the case, then the link between the evidence and the conclusion would not hold: according to the “time and lifestyle” theory, people would likely avoid the constant updating and posting required to maintain online friendships as much as they would maintaining real ones.

Choice D seems to be the best answer at first glance. It establishes that Facebook friendships aren’t as time-consuming to maintain as real-life ones, which makes the publicist’s conclusion seem very plausible. To be sure, test the other answer choices to make sure none of them is a required assumption.

For necessary assumptions, you can do one basic thing to see if an answer is wrong: Pretend for a moment that its proposed assumption is not true, and see if the conclusion still holds. If it does, then the assumption is not necessary (since the argument can stand without it).

A) The cited survey included a large majority of the internet population.

Even if the survey did not “include a large majority of the internet population,” it might have polled people who were perfectly representative of the internet population at large. This assumption protects against the idea of an unrepresentative sample, but it’s not required for the argument to be valid.

B) People often maintain Facebook friendships for business networking purposes, even when they would not cultivate such relationships in real life.

The publicist’s argument can still hold even if no single person were to maintain a Facebook friendship for business networking purposes. There may be enough people who maintain those friendships to overcome self-esteem problems or to satisfy some compulsive need to inform 482 of their acquaintances about their choice of restaurant for the conclusion to be valid. Business networking is not part of the argument, so this choice introduces an irrelevant topic.

C) In real life, people’s flaws are often more apparent than they seem on Facebook.

It’s unclear how a friend’s personal flaws factor into “gross demands…on time and lifestyle.” Though experience might have you believe that desperate, tearful phone calls or relentless snobbery constitute personal affronts to your peace of mind, this choice does not explicitly make the connection that a friend’s personal flaws will eat up your time and inhibit your lifestyle. This choice deals with a term similar (“personal flaws”) but not equivalent to “demands on time and lifestyle.”

E) The availability of a variety of interesting features makes people more likely to spend time communicating with their friends on Facebook than they would in real life.

Not only is this assumption unnecessary, it also actively weakens the publicist’s argument. Time spent sending private messages, filming and sharing embarrassing videos, or devising clever updates on Facebook would only infringe further upon a person’s “time and lifestyle”—maybe even more so than a real-life friendship. Thus, this assumption undermines the entire point of the argument; it presents an assumption opposite to that which is required.

Answer:

The answer is D. The publicist assumes that a Facebook friendship is less time-consuming and interruptive of lifestyle than a real-life friendship.

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