PrepTest 116, Section 2, Question 18
Editorial: It is clear that what is called(80 more words not shown)
The conclusion drawn by the(14 more words not shown)
- Adoes not leave(12 more words not shown)
- Bdoes not offer(5 more words not shown)
- Cdoes not involve(5 more words not shown)
- Dattempts to influence(6 more words not shown)
- Eis very successful(4 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Calling something health education doesn't tell us what happens in the lesson. Are people being taught how something works, or just being told the same slogan over and over?
The editorial gives us its own distinction. Propaganda tries to influence behavior solely by repeating simplistic slogans. Education offers the information in its complexity and lets people decide how to act. Both try to influence behavior, so that shared goal won't separate them.
Think of repeating “Don't do drugs” without explaining anything, compared with teaching people why a drug might harm them and letting them work through that information. The first fits the editorial's account of propaganda. But have we been told which approach health education usually uses? No. The label alone doesn't establish it.
What we’re looking for
We're asked to make the conclusion follow. Then tell us health education usually does what the editorial defines as propaganda: tries to influence behavior solely through repeated simplistic slogans. That would connect health education to the category the author puts it in.
Working the answers
- A
This would rule out education as the editorial describes it, because education leaves the decision to the individual. But not being education doesn't automatically mean being propaganda. There could be a third kind of activity that fits neither description. The author says the two never overlap, not that everything must be one or the other.
- B
Again, this would show that health education fails a requirement of education: offering information in all its complexity. It wouldn't show that health education works by repeating slogans. We need to establish the positive claim that it is propaganda, not merely eliminate education as a label.
- C
This goes in the wrong direction. Repeating simplistic slogans is the method that defines propaganda here. Saying health education doesn't use that method gives us no basis for classifying it as propaganda.
- DCorrect
This supplies the missing description. Health education usually tries to influence behavior solely by repeating simplistic slogans, which is precisely how the editorial defines propaganda. Since the editorial also says education never uses that method, D establishes both sides of the conclusion: usually propaganda rather than education.
- E
Being very successful doesn't tell us which method produced the success. The editorial says propaganda is more successful than education, not that propaganda is the only successful way to influence behavior. Education could be very successful too, even if propaganda were more successful.
Think about the difference between identifying an activity by what it does and identifying it only by an outcome other activities can also produce. D gives the defining method. E gives a result that doesn't uniquely identify propaganda.
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