Because of the ubiquity of television in modern households, few children today spend their free time reading stories, which lack the visual appeal of flashy television programs.
Conclusion (thus)
Few children today will develop a lifelong interest in literature.
Evidence
Few children today spend their free time reading stories.
Evaluate
Since the premise and conclusion are such parallel claims, we're just doing this sort of analysis:
Few children are X. Thus, few children are Y. assumes: If X, then Y
However, it's a little misleading to write the missing link as, .
Why? Because statements using FEW are negative statements. We understand them much better when we translate from negative into positive.
These are the three negative to positive translations we should have memorized: No A's are B = All A's are ~B Few A's are B = Most A's are ~B Not all A's are B = Some A's are ~B
Translated, the argument is saying,
So the missing link getting us from what we know about most kids today to what we want to know about most kids today would sound like this:
As an analogy, suppose you heard this argument:
You wouldn't say that author is assuming even though it kind of looks like that's the gap.
You have to rephrase these statements. What do we know about Pete's friends from the evidence? they didn't score higher than 150.
What is the conclusion claiming about them? They won't get into Yale.
Thus, the correct assumption would be, .
Goal
Let's look for the predicted missing link or its contrapositive:
~ spend free time reading → ~ lifelong interest in lit lifelong interest in lit → spend free time reading
We can also eliminate any answer that doesn't include the idea of developing a lifelong interest in literature, since that's the New Concept in the Conclusion