PrepTest 139, Section 4, Question 7
Most respondents to a magazine survey who had(66 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(7 more words not shown)
- AMost of the(34 more words not shown)
- BMost people can(20 more words not shown)
- CWhen people are(34 more words not shown)
- DMany novels that(11 more words not shown)
- EThe novel in(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
This novel. We've only looked at this novel.
Maybe its audio performance is especially good. Maybe the people who chose to listen are different from those who chose to read: they might be more generous in their ratings, for example. Even the magazine's audience could matter. A horror magazine's readers might respond differently to a horror story than readers elsewhere would. These are possibilities, not things we know about this survey.
The larger jump comes when the author moves from this one book to novels generally. Imagine that listeners liked Harry Potter more than readers did. Would that establish the same pattern for The Lord of the Rings or To Kill a Mockingbird? We would want a reason to think the result carries over.
What we’re looking for
For the weaken question, my main prediction is a difference that makes this book a poor representative of novels generally. A result tied to something unusual about this novel wouldn't give us much reason to expect an advantage for listening to other books.
Working the answers
- A
This separates most respondents' experience of the book into listening or reading. It doesn't give us a reason to think the enjoyment difference arose from exposure to both versions, and it doesn't challenge the move from one novel to novels generally. It also doesn't settle whether the two groups differed in other ways.
- B
Taking less time doesn't tell us whether someone enjoys the book more. A slow audio performance could be delightful or tedious; a quick reading could be enjoyable or unsatisfying. Without connecting time to enjoyment, this fact doesn't weaken the argument.
- C
This tendency applies to people who read and to people who listen. It doesn't explain why the listeners reported enjoying this book more than the readers did. Nor does saying people tend to report enjoyment establish that their reports are false. We need a reason to doubt this comparison's broader lesson.
- D
Availability isn't enjoyment. Some books having no audio version doesn't tell us what happens when people listen to an available version rather than read the book.
- ECorrect
This novel has an unusual feature that favors hearing it: dialogue in many dialects that are easier to understand aloud. That could explain why its listeners enjoyed it more without establishing a general advantage for listening to novels.
The phrase “unlike most novels” matters. It identifies why this particular example may not represent the larger group. We don't need to prove that listening is usually worse; we just need to undercut the use of this special case to support the broad comparison.
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