PT151 S3 Q18 ExplanationAn analysis of the language in social media

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   No Impact1% picked this

   people’s overall moods are lowest at the beginning of the workweek and rise later, peaking

   We're talking about a daily cycle, not a weekly one. This doesn't offer an alternate explanation for the data, since it describes a weekly pattern of starting low and ending high, not a daily pattern of starting high, dipping, and then ending high.

   1%
2. B

   Too Weak8% picked this

   many people who post social media messages use neither words associated with positive moods nor words

   Quantities like "some / sometimes / not all / many" are almost always wrong on Strengthen, Weaken, and Paradox. They just don't provide enough info to have much impact. This is basically saying "there are at least 10 people who only post neutral words". Cool. They don't change the fact that the average still is what it is: more positive in the morning/evening than in midday.

   8%
3. C

   Too Weak25% picked this

   the frequency in the use of words in social media is not necessarily indicative of the frequency of the use of those

   Too Weak: not necessarily Out of Scope: other forms of comm. "Not necessarily" / "need not" / "not all" will almost always be wrong on Strengthen, Weaken, and Paradox, since they have such little strength behind them. To learn that X is not necessarily Y is only to learn that at least once there has been an X that wasn't Y. So this answer just says, "At least once, someone used words on social media with a different frequency than they used words in other forms of communication".

   25%
4. D

   Irrelevant Distinction: # of messages5% picked this

   the number of social media messages posted in the morning is not significantly different from the number

   We're dealing with averages here, so the absolute numbers don't really concern us. Whether the number of messages is / isn't much greater or lesser in the morning vs. the evening doesn't change any part of this conversation. We care about the positivity / negativity of the messages, not the quantity.

   5%
5. E

   Correct61% picked this

   most of the social media messages posted in the evening are posted by people who rarely post such

   Why this is right

   This weakens the connection between the Evidence and the Conclusion, because the author was taking the Evidence (a daily social media pattern of positive, negative, positive) to show that people experience this arc of mood throughout the day. But most people who post in the evening don't post in the morning, then we wouldn't look at this progression of positivity and negativity and conclude that it tells us something about the daily mood roller-coaster of social media users. The author was assuming the the same people were posting positive stuff in the morning, sadder stuff midday, and happier stuff in the evening. According to this answer, this data is just coming from different sources at different times. The people posting in the morning generally aren't posting in the evening. The people posting in the evening generally aren't posting in the morning. So this progression of positivity/negativity that was observed is really telling us more about the moods of people who post in the morning vs. those who post midday vs. those who post in the evening. It isn't tracking the course of someone's moods throughout a day.

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

   61%