PrepTest 123, Section 2, Question 11
It is now a common complaint that the(64 more words not shown)
The reference to the complaint(23 more words not shown)
- Aevidence supporting the(17 more words not shown)
- Ban illustration of(17 more words not shown)
- Can example of(16 more words not shown)
- Devidence that the(17 more words not shown)
- Epossible evidence, mentioned(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
I can see why people worry about that. Reading a book asks us to follow a thought, hold onto details, and think about how they fit together. Scrolling through videos may ask much less of us. So when someone complains that electronic media are weakening skills associated with reading, I'm willing to hear them out.
Then the author points out that people once made a similar complaint about reading itself. Before literacy spread, remembering information and speaking well without preparation mattered a great deal. People worried that books would undermine those abilities. Interesting—but were they wrong? Maybe we really did lose some skills when we started relying on writing. And even if that change worked out well overall, moving from conversation to books isn't the same change as moving from books to screens.
So I'm not ready to accept the conclusion that we're merely changing rather than getting worse. The earlier complaint alone doesn't settle that. But now the question asks for the role of that earlier complaint, not whether the argument convinces us.
What we’re looking for
What is the author trying to do with the example? Show us an earlier change in communication that needn't have been an overall decline, so we'll be less ready to call today's change a decline. That's the job I want the answer to describe. We can recognize what a piece of evidence is supposed to establish even while questioning whether it establishes it.
Working the answers
- A
This is the present-day complaint the author responds to. The historical example isn't offered to show that electronic media destroy skills associated with reading. It is supposed to make us question whether a change in our skills amounts to the mind getting worse overall.
- B
“Inseparable” gives us a broad theory that the author doesn't advance. Comparing changes in communication and the skills people use isn't the same as saying intellectual abilities cannot be separated from how we communicate. We need the example's role in this argument, not a larger claim we could invent around it.
- CCorrect
The move toward literacy is the earlier cultural change. The author presents it as something that did not necessarily harm the human mind overall, then invites us to see the move toward electronic media similarly.
We don't have to agree that this comparison proves the conclusion. We also don't have to claim that no skill was lost. The answer describes how the example is being used: a warning about losing familiar skills needn't establish overall intellectual decline.
- D
Particular skills could be disappearing even if the human mind isn't getting worse overall. Perhaps we remember less because we write more down, while gaining other abilities through reading. The author uses the comparison to resist the claim of overall decline. D instead says the comparison shows that the claim about losing particular skills is unwarranted. That isn't the same response.
- E
The author relies on this historical complaint. It supplies the comparison behind the conclusion. Nothing in the argument mentions it and then dismisses it, so E gets its role backward.
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