RC Question 20 Explanation
DISCUSSION: When a question quotes lines, you should always read around them. If you read lines 31-34, the term “forces of persuasion” is clear.
It’s the manipulations of advertisers. The argument in paragraph 3 says that these manipulations change even our instinctive judgements (line 34).
___________
- The passage isn’t about “dishonest” claims in advertising. Misinformation is only mentioned in passing in line 40.
- If you read lines 31-34, line 32 is clearly referring to advertisers. Advertisers are not innate and instinctive drives.
- This answer aims to confuse you by making up a term similar to one that was mentioned elsewhere in the passage (“emotional”).
The passage never mentions “emotional pressure”. Line 44 mentions emotional fulfillment. That has nothing to do with line 32. - “Social indoctrination” might refer to advertising (it’s a stretch), but the passage definitely doesn’t talk about state sponsored indoctrination.
This answer only makes sense if you’re trying to prove it right, and paper over the flaws. Instead, you should be trying to prove answers wrong. - CORRECT. If you read all of lines 31-34, they say exactly this. Line 31 says “manipulation of advertisers”. Line 34 says that this manipulation, these forces of persuasion affect our instinctive judgements.
Given the line in the next paragraph saying that most adults “understand and recognize the techniques used” to influence them, it’s hard to accept E as the answer here because it depends on these influences being unrecognized. Any advice there?
Yes, that’s correct to cite those lines – the author agrees with them. But this question asks about forces of persuasion. It is the Marcusians who claim there are forces of persuasion affecting us all.
The author, however, thinks the Marcusians are wrong. We can recognize how ads affect us.
So this accounts for the apparent contradiction. Forces of persuasion describes the opposing view, whereas the lines you cite are the author’s view.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
Could you explain how E is still the right choice given the statement that theorists say these pressures go unrecognized by people affected by them? It seems like they are recognized because people act differently under those pressures.
Good question–the passage doesn’t actually give decisive support for that part of the statement, but (E) is overall still more strongly supported than the other answer choices. If there is evidence in the passage that the influences go unrecognized, it’s in lines 28-31. If consumers are unable to separate their real needs from their false needs, this would suggest that the manipulative influences are going unrecognized. Someone who knows the influences should be able to separate real needs from false needs.
But, you could also feasibly argue that there’s no clear evidence in the passage that the theorists believe that consumers don’t recognize that manipulative influences exist. Reading (E) in that light, it’s hard to strongly support the part of the answer choice that you’ve pointed out, but it’s really just splitting hairs because the rest of the answer choices are quite clearly unsupported.