Most respondents to a magazine survey

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact8% picked this

   Most of the respondents who had listened to a taped reading of the novel had never read it, and most of the respondents who

   Although we could strengthen this argument by saying, "People experienced both the taped version and the written version and almost always preferred the taped version", it doesn't weaken the argument to learn that most people did not experience both versions. This answer can't be said to much impact, since we basically already knew this to be true. The background facts of the survey made it clear that most people did not experience both versions, since most who listened said they enjoyed the novel and most who read said they didn't enjoy it. If most respondents had listened to it and read it, then we would be able to say "most of the listeners said the novel was good" and "most of the readers said the novel was bad" because most of the listeners were also readers (and vice versa).

   8%
2. B

   No Impact2% picked this

   Most people can read a novel in considerably less time than it would take them to listen to

   This presents a distinction - reading takes less time than listening. Could that be the real reason why the listeners liked the novel more than the readers? For us to think of that as an Explanation, we'd have to assume that "the less time it takes to experience a novel, the less likely you are to enjoy it". That's not really a common sense link (for myself, the opposite probably applies). Furthermore, that wouldn't be an Alternate explanation; that would still be reinforcing the author's explanation. Since we can read faster than someone can speak, it is an inherent property of written books vs. taped books that the former will take less time to get through. So if we're attributing the positive/negative evaluations respondents had to how long it took them to get through the novel, then we are agreeing with the author's conclusion that the format itself will tend to have an influence on how much someone enjoys the novel.

   2%
3. C

   No Distinction7% picked this

   When people are asked their opinion of a best-selling novel that they have read or listened to on tape, they are more likely to

   This answer applies uniformly to both written / taped versions of novels, so it doesn't help us judge any distinction between written and taped versions. The fact that in both cases people are more likely to give a positive review than a negative review doesn't affect anything in this conversation. We might have thought, "Wait, in this survey, when people were asked their opinion of a best-selling novel that they have read, they were more likely to say they did not enjoy it than that they enjoyed it". Doesn't that conflict? Sure, it doesn't conform to the generalization, but the generalization wasn't guaranteeing that in all cases when you ask people about a best-seller they read or heard, there will be more favorable than unfavorable votes. It's just saying the probability is higher for positive reviews than for negative ones. We can't weaken by saying that one data point doesn't conform to a probabilistic statement. If we say, "Lebron usually drives to the basket with this left hand", we're not weakening that by pointing to one data point when he drove to the hoop with his right hand.

   7%
4. D

   Irrelevant Distinction: available2% picked this

   Many novels that are available in text versions are not available

   It doesn't matter whether audio versions always exist. The author is promising that we can find an audio version of every book. She is only concluding that if there is an audio version, we're more likely to prefer it over the written version.

   2%
5. E

   Correct81% picked this

   The novel in question, unlike most novels, included dialogue in many different dialects that are more understandable when

   Why this is right

   This starts off super lovable by telling us right away that this novel from the survey is an outlier, an atypical example. It's unlike most novels. Sure, for this novel the taped version was more likely to be enjoyed than was the written version, because it was easier to hear weird dialects than to read them (anyone who's read Huckleberry Finn might remember how hard it is to read Huck's country dialect). But since most novels don't have this feature (dialogue in many different dialects), then it weakens the Sample ? Generalization move the author is making. In other words, the reason that people preferred the taped version of this novel isn't likely to apply broadly to taped vs. written versions of novels, so the author has very weak evidence for such a broad conclusion.

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

   81%