PrepTest 154, Section 2, Question 9
Editor: It is a myth that a significant(51 more words not shown)
The editor’s reasoning is questionable(3 more words not shown)
- Aoverlooks the possibility(15 more words not shown)
- Bneglects to consider(11 more words not shown)
- Cfails to provide(15 more words not shown)
- Dpresumes, without giving(18 more words not shown)
- Etakes for granted(21 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What about the other 1 percent?
The editor tells us that 99 percent of people who download music don't publish new music online. Fine: most downloaders may just listen. But that fact counts people, while the conclusion concerns how much music gets produced. A small share of the people could create a large amount of the music.
Imagine the remaining 1 percent spending a great deal of time remixing and uploading songs. Each person could publish many tracks, while everyone else publishes none. In that situation, the editor's statistic would be true, yet reworked music could still make up a significant amount of what's available online.
What we’re looking for
We don't need to establish that this is actually happening. The editor is declaring it a myth without ruling out a possibility that fits the evidence. The flaw answer should identify that gap: few creators doesn't necessarily mean little music.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This is precisely the overlooked possibility. The 1 percent may be a relatively small share of the downloaders, but their output could still be substantial. The editor needs information about the amount of music they create, not just the percentage of people who create any.
- B
How easy it is to publish music doesn't, by itself, tell us how much reworked music is actually published. Publishing could be easy and uncommon, or difficult but done extensively by a committed group. The error in the given statistic is the jump from few people to little output.
- C
You can reject an explanation without supplying a complete replacement. If someone offers a poor account of where a particular song came from, we can identify the problem while still saying, “I don't know its actual source.” The same applies here: the editor wouldn't have to explain all the other music to show that this proposed source contributed little.
The editor's problem is that the stated evidence doesn't show that. Requiring a different account would add a burden the argument doesn't need to meet.
- D
A person could download music, remix it, and keep the result on a computer without publishing it. The argument doesn't need to rule that out. Its conclusion concerns music on the Internet, so unpublished creations aren't part of the quantity being assessed. The important unresolved group is the people who do publish new music online.
- E
Listeners' preferences don't establish where the available music comes from. People could prefer entirely original songs while many remixes were still published, or prefer remixes while relatively few were published. The editor's argument isn't based on which kind listeners like better.
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