PrepTest 113, Section 2, Question 4
Compared to us, people who lived a century(18 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(7 more words not shown)
- AMany of the(10 more words not shown)
- BOn average, people(14 more words not shown)
- CThe number of(11 more words not shown)
- DOn the average,(16 more words not shown)
- EOne of the(9 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Having fewer distractions doesn't automatically mean more reading.
I can see the author's thought: with fewer ways to amuse yourself, perhaps you turn to books. But what if books are hard to get or too expensive? A lack of competing entertainment doesn't put a book in your hands. Those are possible obstacles, not facts we've been given about people a century ago.
What we’re looking for
We're asked to weaken the argument. My first prediction is information about access to books: perhaps people had few other diversions but still couldn't readily read. More generally, I want a reason the small number of alternatives doesn't tell us how much reading people actually did. The correct answer needs to challenge that connection, not just tell us something about old books or old entertainment.
Working the answers
- A
Low literary quality doesn't mean nobody reads a book. People might find an undemanding or badly written book entertaining, especially if few other diversions are available. A needs an extra assumption that low quality substantially prevented reading, and it gives us no direct reason to make that assumption.
- BCorrect
This takes a different route from my access-to-books prediction: people had considerably less time available for leisure in the first place.
Imagine someone spending most of the day working in a field or factory and having very little free time left. Fewer entertainment options wouldn't make that person available to read for hours. Someone today could have more distractions but also much more time to divide among them, including reading.
B doesn't say people in the past had no free time or read nothing. It gives us a competing factor that directly limits the activity. The author counts the available diversions while overlooking how much time people have to spend on any diversion.
- C
Books sold aren't the same as books read. People can buy books and leave them unread, while a purchased book can be borrowed and read by several people. A larger sales total today therefore doesn't by itself establish that people today do more reading. C changes the measure from reading to purchases.
- D
This is closer to my initial price concern, but read the actual comparison. Books now cost slightly less relative to other goods. That doesn't show that people a century ago couldn't afford books, lacked access to them, or spent less time reading. A small change in relative price could leave books accessible in both periods. B supplies a clearer obstacle to reading: considerably less leisure time.
- E
Naming one popular diversion is consistent with the premise that there were few. Horse racing could have been one of those few activities. We still don't know how much time people spent on it or whether it left them reading more or less than people today. E fills in a name without challenging the inference.
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