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Paraphrasing this STRENGTHEN question...

This is about the one person arguing with another. Person "A" states the group of works exhibited in this year's Metropolitan Art Show reflects a bias in favor of photographers because there is an equal number of photographers, sculptors and painters who submitted works that met the traditional criteria for the show, yet more photographs were exhibited than either sculptures or paintings. "A" also adds that each artist is allowed to submit work in one medium only.

Person "B" questions how there can be a bias. "B" states that all submitted works met the traditional criteria--and only those works--were exhibited in the show.

Which one of the following, if true, most strongly supports "A's" allegation of bias?

(B) The fee of entering photographs in the Metropolitan Art Show was $25 per work submitted, while the fee for each painting or sculpture submitted was $75.
(E) In previous years, it has often happened that more paintings or more sculptures were exhibited in the Metropolitan Art Show than photographs, even though the total number of works exhibited each years does not vary wildly.

I picked (E) because (my reasoning) it shows that every year the biases change mediums. I discarded (B) because that answer choice has to do with cost. Where did I go wrong?

Thank you for your enlightenment.

So if you want to strengthen, you have to strengthen the conclusion, which reads:

"blah blah blah, there was a bias in favor of the photographers"

Basically, you have to chose an answer that says that there was some sort of reason in the selection process that tended to FAVOR photographs OVER other stuff, and that it wasn't because the photographs were simply better pieces of ART that they were chosen so much this year.

But what does E say? It says that back in the day, more other stuff was chosen, and though the NUMERICAL distribution of the mediums has remained unchanged, that MORE photographs were chosen. But then, HOW do you know that the photographs weren't chosen because they were simply better artworks this year?

Remember that once you have figured out the core IDEA behind what the author is assuming (which is italicized above), then the credited response will support this IDEA or GAP. So basically, here we need the correct answer to support the notion that Photographs were not chosen more because of MERIT but some other reason, i.e. the bias that they refer to.

B does this. IF the entry cost was lower for Photographs, then it could be the case that MORE photographs were submitted, hence resulting in a high number and percentage of selected photographs this year. It wasn't JUST because of the quality of the photographs that SO many of them were chosen. Phrased another way, there was a larger barrier to entry for sculptures and paintings than there were for photographs, thus resulting (A) more photographs submitted and (B) more photographs selected.

Hope this helps.

Actually, here.. read this:

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It's sorta jumbled, but I wrote this way back in the day when I was like you, and studying pretty ferociously for the LSAT. This basically sums up the epiphany that I had that prephrasing the GAP for strengthen/weaken Q types was really the surefire way to super high accuracy with those types of questions. I had a pretty intense study routine, involving lots of index cards and LR analysis.

LSAT_Padawan wrote:(E) In previous years, it has often happened that more paintings or more sculptures were exhibited in the Metropolitan Art Show than photographs, even though the total number of works exhibited each years does not vary wildly.

This doesn't prove anything. One would expect the distribution of works submitted to vary from year to year, and that variance alone could explain the above.

(B) The fee of entering photographs in the Metropolitan Art Show was $25 per work submitted, while the fee for each painting or sculpture submitted was $75.

This indicates a concrete way in which photographs were favored over other media, particularly given that each artist may only submit a work in one medium.

The best way to think about questions like this is to consider the conversation as follows:
A makes contention.
B attempts to refute A's contention.
A says, "But what about (answer choice)?"
B says, "I see your point."