QUESTION TEXT: Because of the ubiquity of television in…
QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption
CONCLUSION: Few of today’s children will develop a lifelong interest in literature.
REASONING: Television is ubiquitous and attracts children with flashy visual appeal. This means few children today spend free time reading stories.
ANALYSIS: The break in the reasoning here is fairly apparent – hopefully you were able to spot it! The author says that kids are reading less, and concludes that fewer kids will have a lifelong interest in literature. But we need to connect these, so we should look for an answer that tells us that kids only develop the lifelong interest if they spend their free time reading stories.
___________
- This is the opposite of what we want. It says that all kids who spend free time reading will develop the interest. But it doesn’t say that spending free time reading is the only way.
- CORRECT. This is exactly what we were looking for. The only way to develop the lifelong interest is to spend free time reading. But few kids spend free time reading, so few kids will develop the lifelong interest.
- This answer is deliberately confusing, with its double negative. It essentially says that all kids without a television will spend free time reading. This might be true, but it doesn’t complete the chain of reasoning.
- This tells us that kids who watch a “great deal of television” are unlikely to develop the lifelong literature interest. But that doesn’t complete our reasoning. We don’t have any information about how many kids are watching a great deal of television – only that television is attractive.
- This doesn’t connect our argument with our conclusion. It draws a deeper distinction between television-watchers and readers, but does not tell us that few children will develop a lifelong interest in literature.
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