Despite a steady decrease in the average number of hours worked per pe

Question

Despite a steady decrease in the average number of hours worked per person per week, the share of the population that reads a daily newspaper has declined greatly in the past 20 years. But the percentage of the population that watches television daily has shown a similarly dramatic increase over the same period. Clearly, increased television viewing has caused a simultaneous decline in newspaper reading.

Which one of the following, if true, would be most damaging to the explanation given above for the decline in newspaper reading?

(A) There has been a dramatic increase over the past 20 years in the percentage of people who tell polltakers that television is their primary source of information about current events.

(B) Of those members of the population who do not watch television, the percentage who read a newspaper every day has also shown a dramatic decrease.

(C) The time people spend with the books and newspapers they read has increased, on average, from 1 to 3 hours per week in the past 20 years.

(D) People who spend large amounts of time each day watching television are less able to process and remember printed information than are those who do not watch television.

(E) A typical television set is on 6 hours a day, down from an average of 6 1/2 hours a day 5 years ago.

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

(A) No. Assuming that the poll is accurate, this would support the argument.

(B) Yes.  This indicates that it was not the increase in television viewing that caused the decline in the percentage of people who read newspapers. Rather, there was a third factor that led both those who watch television and those who do not to spend less time reading newspapers.

(C) No. The argument concerns the declining number (percentage) of people who read newspapers, not the average amount of time they spend in this activity. Although there are fewer people reading newspapers, they may spend more time reading.

(D) No. This is irrelevant.

(E) No. The passage is referring to the past 20 years, whereas this answer-choice is referring only to the past 5 years. Further, the amount of time a television is on does not necessarily reflect the amount of time people actually spend watching it. For example, perhaps 5 years ago only young children were likely to watch much television, whereas now a whole family is likely to watch television.

Octobre · Answer

B? 
People just read newspapers less and less regardless of whether they watch TV or not. So TV is not the cause.

kunalsinghNS · Answer

B is the perfect fit here 
I would say option C is close but option C says that time of reading for books and paper has increased. Hence it can be possible that time for newspaper has been decreased but for books it has increased such that it overcomes the deficit of newspaper. Plus it doesn't talk about its impact on television viewing.

JS1290 · Answer

I was wondering is this truly a 700 level question? Or has this been mistakenly put into this category?

Gnpth · Answer

This is a LSAT question. I don't think it is a 700 Level. But for sure it might be at 620+ to 650 level question.

Skywalker18 · Answer

Despite a steady decrease in the average number of hours worked per person per week, the share of the population that reads a daily newspaper has declined greatly in the past 20 years. But the percentage of the population that watches television daily has shown a similarly dramatic increase over the same period. Clearly, increased television viewing has caused a simultaneous decline in newspaper reading.

Conclusion- increased television viewing(Cause) has caused a simultaneous decline in newspaper reading(effect)
Type- weaken

(A) There has been a dramatic increase over the past 20 years in the percentage of people who tell polltakers that television is their primary source of information about current events.- irrelevant

(B) Of those members of the population who do not watch television, the percentage who read a newspaper every day has also shown a dramatic decrease.- Correct, here the cause(TV viewing) is absent, but the effect(decline in newspaper reading) is present

(C) The time people spend with the books and newspapers they read has increased, on average, from 1 to 3 hours per week in the past 20 years.- incorrect- we are concerned with newspaper daily reading time

(D) People who spend large amounts of time each day watching television are less able to process and remember printed information than are those who do not watch television.- irrelevant

(E) A typical television set is on 6 hours a day, down from an average of 6 1/2 hours a day 5 years ago.- irrelevant

Answer B

NupurGovil · Answer

I chose option C, since C seems to counter the conclusion of the question.

Can you let me know why C is not the right answer?

CEdward · Answer

C in a way acts to counter the idea that fewer people read the newspaper...although not necessarily since time spent watching and decrease in the number of people reading isn't necessarily positively correlated.

Anyway, the real issue is that C doesn't do as good a job compared to B of negating the conclusion: that increased TV viewing CAUSED a simultaneous decline in newspaper reading. We need to attack the claim about causality here and B) does just that. It says, in effect, that even when the cause (tv watching) is absent, the effect (decreased newspaper readership) STILL occurs. So B) breaks the causal chain and suggests that something else might be responsible for the effect seen.

HarshaBujji · Answer

Weaken type all we need to do is to identify an alternate cause or statements that could lead to an alternate cause.

Here  option B  is providing a lead for alternate cause, It's not TVs that are causing the Newspaper reading population. It's something else.

unraveled · Answer

Despite a steady decrease in the average number of hours worked per person per week, the share of the population that reads a daily newspaper has declined greatly in the past 20 years. But the percentage of the population that watches television daily has shown a similarly dramatic increase over the same period. Clearly, increased television viewing has caused a simultaneous decline in newspaper reading.

Which one of the following, if true, would be most damaging to the explanation given above for the decline in newspaper reading?

(A) There has been a dramatic increase over the past 20 years in the percentage of people who tell polltakers that television is their primary source of information about current events. - WRONG. Supports the conclusion instead.

(B) Of those members of the population who do not watch television, the percentage who read a newspaper every day has also shown a dramatic decrease. - CORRECT. Hence TV viewing is not the reason. There is another factor that leads to such decrease.

(C) The time people spend with the books and newspapers they read has increased, on average, from 1 to 3 hours per week in the past 20 years. - WRONG. Time spent is increased but number of people as a percentage has decreased. No impact hence doesn't help.

(D) People who spend large amounts of time each day watching television are less able to process and remember printed information than are those who do not watch television. - WRONG. Not relevant.

(E) A typical television set is on 6 hours a day, down from an average of 6 1/2 hours a day 5 years ago. - WRONG. But still 15 years are there that might be having a far greater impact on the overall result.

Answer B.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Despite a steady decrease in the average number of hours worked per pe

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