In the interest of assisting the community, I will provide my thoughts on this one. Our task here is to provide a logical conclusion. What does the passage tell us?
Bunuel wrote:
Television programming experts maintain that with each 1% increase in the prime-time ratings of a television station there is a 3.5% increase in the number of people who watch its evening news program. However, in the last ten years at Channel NTR, there was only one year of extremely high prime-time ratings and during that year, fewer people than ever watched Channel NTR’s evening news program.
Sentence 1 provides the view of
television programming experts, who have noted a positive correlation between
the prime-time ratings of a television station and
the number of people who watch its evening news program.
Sentence 2 starts with a contrast in
however, and the rest of the sentence delivers a counterexample to the claim from before. Over a ten-year period at Channel NTR, there was a single year of
extremely high prime-time ratings, but
fewer people than ever watched Channel NTR's evening news program.
The positive correlation seems jeopardized, to say the least. So what can we necessarily conclude?
Bunuel wrote:
(A) When a news program has good ratings, the channel as a whole will have good ratings.
There are a few problems with this one. The most noticeable is that the arrow of correlation has been reversed. The experts in the beginning of the passage note that an increase in prime-time ratings occurs with a corresponding increase in viewers of the evening news program offered by the station. This answer choice places the news program first—not an automatic red flag, since the passage does not indicate conclusively that A
leads to B, just that they increase together in a predictable manner—but it also removes the type of news program by dropping
evening. This omission is the real dagger in the heart here, since we cannot make any predictions about the effect that just any sort of news program may have. We are interested in
evening news programs only.
Red light.Bunuel wrote:
(B) The programming experts neglected to consider daytime news programs.
We can properly deduce this from the information in the passage? I think not. The passage does not mention daytime news programs, so we cannot speculate on what the experts may have considered about them. For all we know, they did look at such data, but they did not find a correlation worth mentioning.
Red light.Bunuel wrote:
(C) The year of high ratings at NTR was a result of two hit shows which were subsequently canceled because of contractual problems.
The specificity of this answer choice works against it. How are we to conclude that there were
two hit shows, as opposed to, say, one, or three, or some other arbitrary number? Then, how could we have any insight into why these shows were canceled? This is pure conjecture, the opposite of what we are looking to do.
Red light.Bunuel wrote:
(D) The ten-year period in question is not representative of normal viewing patterns.
We can only rely on what the passage tells us. How would we know what
normal viewing patterns would look like when the passage does not broach the topic? If our task is to properly draw a conclusion from the statements in the passage, then how can this unstated assumption be our answer? We need to keep looking.
Red light.Bunuel wrote:
(E) Prime-time ratings are not the only factor affecting how many people watch an evening news program.
At last, an answer that fits the bill. The correlation between higher prime-time ratings and increased viewership of the evening news may indeed exist, but perhaps other unacknowledged factors could buttress the correlation (or even be the primary driver). The apparent contradiction presented in the passage regarding Channel NTR can then be resolved. For the sake of simplicity, let us assume two factors:
A—hit show in a prime-time slot
B—sports recap show to round out a prime-time slot
Perhaps A, followed by B, can lead to a 5% increase in prime-time ratings; in turn, the number of people watching the evening news goes up by 5 * 3.5, or 17.5%. But perhaps Channel NTR wanted to capitalize on the popularity of A and started showing back-to-back episodes in place of B. It is conceivable that viewers might have tuned in for A and then tuned out for the evening news. Perhaps B had bridged well from prime-time programming to evening news, but A and the evening news had little in common. Although this scenario is hypothetical, it is all within the parameters of the information presented in the passage. This is our answer, the only defensible one of the five.
Green light.I hope that helps. I would be happy to discuss the question further if anyone harbors doubts.
- Andrew