Educator: Despite claims that books offer a better reading experience

Official Explanation

Premise #1 – Study’s findings: people can recall facts better when learning off an e-reader

Conclusion: E-readers are better for deep understanding.

Assumption: That recalling facts equates to a deep understanding. This matches best with (B).

(A) compares leisure reading to the reading done in the study. “Deeper understanding of material” does not match up with leisure reading.

(B) The answer.

(C) weakens the premise not the conclusion.

(D) is the view of those who disagree with the conclusion. Their reasoning, however, does not relate to the findings of the study.

(E) does not relate to the question of how well one understands material and the reading medium one uses.

KarishmaB, I am finding real difficult to not select C as the Answer.

Option (C) is out of scope.

Conclusion: Therefore, if the reader hopes to have a deeper understanding of the material he or she is reading, that person should study using an electronic reader.

The point is - when one reads a book vs when one reads digitally, does reading digitally lead to deeper understanding?

C) Electronic readers may be filled with hyperlinks, which can be highly distracting.
It is certainly a con of reading digitally but its not what we are discussing. One could get distracted now and then but still understand the material better while reading digitally. The point is - does one understand better?

Think in another way - If the argument is "whether digital media leads to better retention," saying that "digital media wastes too much time" doesn't help. I am not interested in the other advantages or disadvantages of either media.

B) Reading comprehension depends on how well one is able to connect facts not on how well one is able to recall facts in isolation.
Tells us that the conclusion is unjustified because we have been told that digital media leads to better retention of facts. It doesn't imply deeper understanding. Then how can we conclude about deeper understanding?
This makes sense. It attacks our conclusion.

Answer (B)