LR Drill Set 2, Question 8
The common belief that on average people read(52 more words not shown)
The argument is most vulnerable(7 more words not shown)
- Aoverlooks the possibility(17 more words not shown)
- Buses as evidence(13 more words not shown)
- Cmistakes a necessary(5 more words not shown)
- Dfails to answer(18 more words not shown)
- Econfuses an effect(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A poetry journal is asking poetry readers about poetry. Why should their habits represent everyone else's? Tulip's readers might be unusually enthusiastic readers. Their average could rise from three poems a week to seven while people outside that readership read less poetry. For example, perhaps a small group of enthusiasts is becoming more devoted while the wider public is losing interest. Those trends could happen at the same time.
We don't have to prove that this is the real trend. It shows why the journal's results don't settle the claim about people generally. Even if every respondent tells the truth, the people answering the survey may be a poor match for the population in the conclusion.
What we’re looking for
That's the flaw I want to find: using this specialized readership as if it represented the public at large.
Working the answers
- A
Consistent overstatement doesn't necessarily erase the increase. Suppose readers added two poems to their true weekly count in both surveys. The actual averages would then be one and five, still an increase. The answer doesn't establish that reporting errors distort the comparison in the relevant direction. And even perfectly accurate reports would leave the central problem: poetry-journal readers needn't represent the public.
- BCorrect
The sample consists of readers of a poetry journal, a group especially likely to have an interest in poetry. The conclusion concerns people overall. An increase within that selected group doesn't establish that the broader population has followed the same trend. The argument needs a basis for extending these readers' habits beyond them.
- C
The argument doesn't give a rule requiring something and then mistakenly treat meeting that requirement as enough. It compares survey averages and generalizes from a particular readership. This description names a possible mistake, but it doesn't describe the reasoning in front of us.
- D
Circulation is the number of readers; seven poems per week is an average per reader. Simply having more readers doesn't explain or invalidate that average. A hundred readers can average seven poems, and ten thousand can also average seven. The issue is who those readers represent, not merely how many copies the journal sells.
- E
The author doesn't offer a causal account of why people read more or less poetry. There is no claimed cause and effect to reverse. The argument uses a reported change in one group's habits as evidence of a broader trend. Its weakness is the extension to the broader group.
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