The growing popularity of computer-based activities was widely expected to result in a decline in television viewing, since it had been assumed that people lack sufficient free time to maintain current television-viewing levels while spending increasing amounts of free time on the computer. That assumption, however, is evidently false: In a recent mail survey concerning media use, a very large majority of respondents who report increasing time spent per week using computers report no change in time spent watching television.
Which of the following would it be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument?
The growing popularity of computer-based activities was widely expected to result in a decline in television
viewing, since it had been assumed that people lack sufficient free time to maintain current television-viewing
levels while spending increasing amounts of free time on the computer. That assumption, however, is evidently
false: In a recent mail survey concerning media use, a very large majority of respondents who report increasing
time spent per week using computers report no change in time spent watching television.
Which of the following would it be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument?
(A) Whether a large majority of the survey respondents reported watching television regularly
(B) Whether the amount of time spent watching television is decliningamong people who report that they
rarely or never use computers
(C) Whether the type of television programs a person watches tends to change as the amount of time spent
per week using computers increases
(D) Whether a large majority of the computer owners in the survey reported spending increasing amounts of
time per week using computers
(E) Whether the survey respondents' reports of time spent using computers included time spent using
computers at work
标准答案是E。
我能够理解答案E是对的,但是我不理解为什么A不对。
我分析A的过程:如果调查的那些人都很少看电视,那么结论中的no change in time spent watching TV就没有意义了,所以A可以weaken the argument.
我昨天刚做了这道题,我一开始选A,继续往下看 看到 E 的时候就改成 E 了。
因为题目问的是most useful。
楼主难道不觉得 E 比 A 更加useful吗?
E 正好击中了题目中的一个弱点:
前面说:people lack sufficient free time to...
后面说:report increasing time spent per week using computers...
偷换概念是题目的软肋,击中软肋的,自然most useful。
反过来看A,不是regulary,会让no change失去意义。但算不上完美驳倒吧? 还是 E 更most useful一些。
题目中说“ since it had been assumed that people lack sufficient free time to maintain current television-viewing
levels while spending increasing amounts of free time on the computer”
因此, 即使调查的那些人很少看或者不看电视, 也算是maintain current tv-viewing level. 因此这个evaluation对结论没有影响