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 computer report no change in time spent watching television.
Which of the following would be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument?
Whether a large majority of the survey respondents reported watching television regularly
Whether the amount of time spent watching television is declining among people who report that they rarely or never use computers
Whether the type of television programs a person watches tends to changes as the amount of time spent per week using computer increases
Whether a large majority of the computer owners in the survey reported spending increasing amounts of time per week using computers
Whether the survey respondents’ reports of time spent using computers included time spent using computers at work.
e -->whether included working or not 不能--> 是否increasing amounts of free time on the computer.无从而知 是否算或是未包含working time都不能 直接 推出 free time的变化,取非与否 对argument都是 视事而非 b -->在那些很少或不使用电脑的respondents中,看电视的时间减少了-->大家都对电视没了兴趣 如果在那些很少或不使用电脑的respondents中,看电视的时间没有减少了--〉加强了后来推断的可能性
同意选E。原推理中的两个关系是free time to maintain current television-viewing levels 和amounts of free time on the computer之间的相互影响。注意这两个都被限制在了free time里。
E如果肯定回答included time spent using computers at work。那么increasing time spent using computer 就没有挤占free time,与amounts of free time on the computer无关。也就是说与原推论无关,不能作为有效证据影响原推论。
如果否定回答的话,time spent using computer就挤占了free time,就会和看电视的时间相冲突。可以作为有效证据影响原推论。