The sense of delayed gratification, of working now for later pleasure,

Correct Answer must be (C) for the highlighted errors in other options..

IMO the answer should be C. When this option is negated, the conclusion breaks down completely.

VeritasPrepHailey mam Kindly explain with POE as unable to comprehend this question

The sense of delayed gratification, of working now for later pleasure, has helped shape the economic behavior of our society. However, that sense is no longer nurtured as consistently in our children as it once was. For example, it used to take a bit of patience to put together the toys that children got the cereal boxes; now the toys come from the boxes whole.

C - sense of gratification is no longer nurtured in kids today
P - Promotional toys come pre-assembled in cereal boxes whereas they used to require assembly in the past

Pre-think:
Toys are a good way to measure gratification
Kids get gratification y assembling toys

Which of the following is an assumption made by the argument?


A. The toys in cereal boxes have changed partly because the economic conditions of our society have improved.
Author is not making any remark about economics in the premise or conclusion - eliminate this
B. The influence of promotion gimmicks on the economic behavior of our society has increased over the years.
Author is not making any remark about economics or economic behaviour of society in the premise or conclusion - eliminate this
C. The toys that used to come in cereal boxes were put together by the same children who played with them.
This makes sense as this matches the definition of gratification provided by the author.
D. Part of the pleasure of any toy lies in putting the toy together before playing with it.
Also, any toy is a red flag here as the author is only talking about toys that come with cereal boxes
E. Today’s children do not expect a single toy to provide pleasure for a long period of time.
The quantity of toys is never a concern for the author.

Certainly, vasuca10. Happy to help!

So, with assumption questions, we're looking for what must be true in order for the argument to make sense. That is, what bridges the gap between evidence and conclusion. So, we want to identify the answer that, if untrue, would cause the argument to crumble.

Let's take a look at the argument:



Here, we're looking for what must be true in order for it to make sense to use the evidence that "it used to take a bit of patience to put together the toys that children got the cereal boxes; now the toys come from the boxes whole" to conclude that "that sense [of delayed gratification] is no longer nurtured as consistently in our children as it once was."

Let's take a look at our answers!



This doesn't have to be true for the argument to make sense. Providing an explanation for the evidence certainly doesn't address something that must be true for the argument to be valid. This one's out.



Again, this doesn't need to be true for the argument to be valid. As with (A), this is completely irrelevant to our argument and the force of its evidence.



Interesting! Let's think about what would happen if this were untrue. If the toys that used to come in cereal boxes were not put together by the same children who played with them... doesn't our argument completely crumble? It would then no longer make sense to use the change in cereal box toys to draw conclusions about the nurturing of delayed gratification in our society. So, this has to be true for the argument to stand. Bingo!



While childhood me would wholeheartedly agree with this statement... it definitely doesn't have to be true for the argument to stand. In fact, the whole idea of delayed gratification rests on the thinking that playing with the toy after putting it together is where the gratification comes into play. So, this one's out.



Again, could be true... could be false... and our argument could still stand. How long children expect a single toy to provide pleasure for has nothing to do with whether we can use the cereal box toy example to draw conclusions concerning the trend of delayed gratification in society.

So, (C) is the only option that complies with the parameters of an assumption. The argument depends on this statement, as it must be true in order for it to make sense to use the fact that "it used to take a bit of patience to put together the toys that children got the cereal boxes; now the toys come from the boxes whole" to conclude that "that sense [of delayed gratification] is no longer nurtured as consistently in our children as it once was. (I talk more about the parameters of an assumption and how to break them down in this video in case you'd like additional detail on this process!)

I hope this helps!

Actually, option B says that the influence of promotional gimmicks has increased.
I still believe that option C is a better choice but can you explain the reason why B is incorrect?