An assumption made in the explanation

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong/Specific2% picked this

   Most television viewers cannot agree on which elements of a particular opinion or analysis

   Too Strong/Specific: Most Out of Scope: Agree The author isn't talking about whether 51% or more viewers can agree on the #1 most disturbing part of an opinion or analysis. This is way too specific. Negating it doesn't really change the conversation: "sorry, author, only 49% of viewers can agree on what was the #1 most disturbing part of an opinion or analysis."

   2%
2. B

   Correct66% picked this

   There are television viewers who might refuse to watch television talk shows that they knew would

   Why this is right

   The soft wording of "might" should bring us in to consider this one. Was the author assuming that people might refuse (be turned off) from watching a talk show if they knew it was disturbing? That seems to be the contrapositive of the author's assumption: want large audience ? be bland / innocuous ~ bland / innocuous ? ~large audience ( disturbing ? lose potential viewers ) Negating it sounds like "No TV viewer would ever refuse to watch a talk show because they know it's controversial or disturbing." Does that hurt the author's argument? Yes! The author is saying that talk shows generally only include bland opinions because they're trying to appeal to large numbers of people (the insinuation being that if the talk show included controversial opinions, it would hurt its changes at appealing to large numbers of people). If we're saying, "No one would ever refuse to watch a show because it's controversial or disturbing", we'd be pushing back at the author's idea that "being controversial would turn away viewers".

   Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   66%
3. C

   Too Strong: Each12% picked this

   Each television viewer holds some opinion that is outside the political mainstream, but those opinions are not

   The author doesn't have to assume that every single TV viewer has at least one fringe opinion. Would it hurt the argument if we said, "Hey, author, there is this one viewer, Lenny, and all of his opinions are inside the political mainstream"? Not at all.

   12%
4. D

   Out of Scope5% picked this

   There are television shows on which economic forces have an even greater impact than they do

   Out of Scope: Other Types of Shows The author doesn't need to assume that economic forces have more impact on talk shows than on other types of shows. Other types of shows aren't even being talked about.

   5%
5. E

   Too Strong: Most14% picked this

   The television talk shows of different stations resemble one another in

   Just because we talked about talk shows being similar when it comes to the blandness of opinions doesn't mean that the author is assuming that talk shows are similar in most other ways.

   14%