Hello Folks who are following this thread,
Apart from the small learning from this question, I have learnt many other things and I thought that it is worthwhile to share.
Experts please correct me if I go wrong anywhere.
egmat souvik101990 VeritasKarishmaSOLUTIONS and ANALYSIS:
• Literary critics are concerned about a recent trend in book publishing
• Sales of genre books
• Lowbow fare, such as romance novels ( that have low literary value as per critics)
○ Have dramatically increased over the last 5 years.
• An analysis of books stocked in bookstores shows that the ratio of titles in classic literature
• Classic literature --> Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and Faulkner
• To genre has decreased
• Overall the above premise is ( ratio of classic literatures and to titles in genre category has decreased)
• THIS PREMISE IS QUESTIONABLE PREMISE ( MEANING WE CAN DRAW INFERENCES FROM IT)
○ We don’t know that the has decreased because less number of classic books now read and genre books being constant
○ Or same classical books read and increase in the titles of the genre books
• The average sales have increased for genre books over 5 years:
• Again two factors:
○ The price of the title in genre books has increased or
○ The number of the title in genre books has increased.
CONCLUSION:
Critics fear that if trends continue, genre books will dominate the market for fiction books,
• Signalling lamentable decrease in quality of literature to which the average reader is exposed.
Here, there are many gaps that should be covered, to reach to the conclusion that has been reached by the author:
Let's consider the cases in which the conclusion will not hold true:
#1:
The price of the genre books in all titles have not increased ( considering the # of books increased) #2: The passage talks about a comparison to genre and classical literature books ( the ratio which is given)
○ Based on that the conclusion is about the fiction and the genre books
§ Earlier I missed this point and this was a grave error,
□
My idea was that the conclusion also talks about the genre and classical books.
§ Here we see a third variable and this was a great mistake I made on this question.
• So our assumption should be:
○
The sales of fictional books are at least comparable to or smaller than the classical genre books and less than the genre books § The idea of this assumption is that if this is not valid then our conclusion will break down.
#3:
The reader base is exposed to higher level of literature than they are seeing now. Meaning, their level is not already down.Based on this we explore the answer.
Options
1. the likelihood that current trends in the sales of books in the genre and classic literature categories continue
• This option is already said in a conditional mode by the proponents in the question. ( if these trends… BLAH BLAH )
2. the amounts of sales, in dollars, for books in the genre and classic literature categories over the last five years
• The ratio is already given. I checked this answer first, but now I get it. As per our brainstorming, we see that even if we had some comparison of fiction and classical literature, we would have been at some proper point.
3. a comparison of sales revenues for nonfiction books and genre books over the last five years
• Non fiction books are totally out of scope from here.
4. sales revenues over the last five years both for genre books and for fiction books other than those in the genre or classic literature categories
• This will lead us somewhere. Based on our brainstorming point 2, we see that this option lies in similar logic.
5. a numerical estimate of the literary value contained in each of several representative titles of the genre book category
• Again like non fictional books and our discussion this is irrelevant.