For several years, Nighttime News attracted fewer viewers than World

Question

For several years, Nighttime News attracted fewer viewers than World News, which broadcasts its show at the same time as Nighttime News. Recently,the producers of Nighttime News added personal interest stories and increased coverage of sports and weather. The two programs no.w have a roughly equal number of viewers. Clearly, the recent programming changes persuaded viewers to switch from World News to Nighttime News.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the author relies?

(A) Viewers are more interested in sports and weather than in personal interest stories.
(B) The programming content of Nighttime News is more closely aligned with the interests of the overall audience than is the content of World News.
(C) Some World News viewers liked the new Nighttime News programming better than they liked the World News programming.
(D) There are other possible causes for an increase in the number of viewers of Nighttime News, including a recent ad campaign that aired on many local affiliates.
(E) The quality of World News will remain constant even if Nighttime News improves.

ramannanda9 · Accepted Answer

Conclusion: Clearly, the recent programming changes persuaded viewers to switch from World News to Nighttime News.

For several years, Nighttime News attracted fewer viewers than World News, which broadcasts its show at the same time as Nighttime News. Recently,the producers of Nighttime News added personal interest stories and increased coverage of sports and weather. The two programs no.w have a roughly equal number of viewers. Clearly, the recent programming changes persuaded viewers to switch from World News to Nighttime News.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the author relies?
(A) Viewers are more interested in sports and weather than in personal interest stories.  This cannot be even derived at. This can't be the assumption 
(B) The programming content of Nighttime News is more closely aligned with the interests of the   overall  ]audience than is the content of World News.  This is not necessary for the conclusion to hold true. It might be the case that content is same for example sports,weather but the quality of one might be better than the other.  
(C) Some World News viewers liked the new Nighttime News programming better than they liked the World News programming.  Correct, This is exactly the assumption we are looking for. If this is true some of the users would switch from world news to nighttime news. Also on negating this becomes Some-> None of the users liked the nightime news programming better than world news. So why would they switch, Since it destroys the argument it is a correct choice. 
(D) There are other possible causes for an increase in the number of viewers of Nighttime News, including a recent ad campaign that aired on many local affiliates.
 How can this be the assumption ? 
(E) The quality of World News will remain constant even if Nighttime News improves.  Does this have to be true? It might remain same, it might not, the only thing that matters is that the quality of nighttime news improve over the world news.

chetan2u · Answer

Hi  Vyshak ,
 Firstly I appreciate your diligence in solving a Q. it is easy to get confused between an assumption and inference..

Assumption is based on our experience of a situation earlier and belief of that to be true in present circumstances, connecting two open ends. Whereas Inference is taking out some info out of an argument and believe it to be true since you believe the argument to be true.
YOU ASSUME SOMETHING TO BE ABLE TO STAND LOGICALLY AND INFER FROM SOMETHING WHICH YOU CONSIDER TO BE TRUE.

lets see the situation here:-
Two programmes are aired at the same time. A has more viewership than B, but after few changes in B, both have the same viewership.
conclusion:- people have switched from A to B.

what can we infer:-
the ratio of A's viewership to B's has gone down.
the changes in B has helped B gain more viewership.  It is given changes have occurred and viewership has increased but not clearly mentioned that ONE has led to SECOND. We INFER that. 
 The programming content of Nighttime News is now more closely aligned with the interests of the few audience than it was before.

Now what can be the assumptions:- something connecting the argument to conclusion 
1. Some World News viewers liked the new Nighttime News programming better than they liked the World News programming.

Kurtosis · Answer

Hi  chetan2u  /  souvik101990 ,

Can you please post your views on this question. Answer choice C appears to be an Inference type answer rather than an Assumption.

kornn · Answer

Dear  AjiteshArun   VeritasKarishma ,

I want to see your take on Option B.

Negated Option B : NNews content is  not more closely  (as closely or less closely) aligned with audience than WNews content.

I think the negated option B. destroys the conclusion. If the content is the same or worse even, why people switched then?

Thank you in advance!

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  varotkorn ,

The "overall audience" bit in option B leads to an immediate removal of that option.

Support 
1. Earlier, NN < WN
2. NN added PSN.
3. Now, NN ≈ WN

Conclusion 
4. PSN led some WN viewers to switch to NN.

Here we must not assume that NN and WN constitute the "universe" of options available to all viewers. These two may be very small players in a very large market. Additionally, NN ≈ WN (that is, WN's numbers may be slightly greater than NN's) now, so there is even less reason to go for an option that says that NN's content is more closely aligned with the interests of  "the overall audience"  than WN's content is.

That is, we just need  some WN viewers  to find NN better now. We don't have to insist on anything when it comes to the preferences of  "the overall audience" .

KarishmaB · Answer

NNews and WNews broadcast at same time (so one viewer can view only one program)
Previously: NNews Viewers < WNews viewers
Recently, NNews added sports, weather and personal interest stories.
Now: NNews Viewers = WNews Viewers

Conclusion: the recent programming changes persuaded viewers to switch from World News to Nighttime News.

We need an assumption for the conclusion. That is, what is necessary for the conclusion to hold?

(A) Viewers are more interested in sports and weather than in personal interest stories.

No comparison made between 'sports and weather' and 'personal interest stories'. Irrelevant

(B) The programming content of Nighttime News is more closely aligned with the interests of the overall audience than is the content of World News.

No. Even before we start to evaluate whether it can be an assumption, note that it requires NNews content to be MORE closely aligned. At this time, both have the same number of viewers. So there is no way we need to assume that NNews content is more closely aligned. Perhaps it is aligned to the same level, we don't know. So this is not our assumption. We do not need to assume that NNews content is MORE closely aligned.

(C) Some World News viewers liked the new Nighttime News programming better than they liked the World News programming.

Yes, we are concluding that people switched from WNews to NNews because of new programming changes in NNews. So we are assuming that some people liked the new programming of NNews better than the WNews programming. Then it logically leads to these people switching.

(D) There are other possible causes for an increase in the number of viewers of Nighttime News, including a recent ad campaign that aired on many local affiliates.

This doesn't help our conclusion at all. So not an assumption.

(E) The quality of World News will remain constant even if Nighttime News improves.

Not an assumption. We don't need to make any assumptions about WNews's quality. Even if the quality of WNews programmes is better too, people could have still switched to NNews for their new programming.

Answer (C)

Mehakgyl · Answer

Had choice E mentioned "The quality of World news has not deteriorated" then would it have been the correct answer?

DmitryFarber · Answer

Mehakgyl

Sure, something like that might work as an alternative cause. (It's normal that there's more than one assumption underlying a causal conclusion.) However, it would work better on a Strengthen/Weaken question. The problem here is that it's not NECESSARY for no other causes to exist. Even if WN has deteriorated, it could still be true that improved programming at NN persuaded some people to switch. In fact, those two factors might easily work together. Notice how that differs from C. If it's not true that ANYONE liked the new NN material better than WN, then how could the changes have led people to switch?

AnkitNandwani1 · Answer

Stimulus Recap 
 Premises: 
 
 Nighttime News had fewer viewers. 
 It added personal interest stories + more sports/weather. 
 Now both shows have about the same viewers.  
 Conclusion: 
→  The programming changes caused viewers to switch from World News to Nighttime News.

The Logical Gap 
To claim the programming changes  caused  the shift, we need to assume:
 
 The new viewers came from World News. 
 They switched  because  of the changes.  
If nobody switched over, or if new viewers came from somewhere else (like people who weren’t watching any news before), the conclusion falls apart.

Apply the Assumption Test (“If false, argument dies”) 
Let’s look at the options.

❌  (A) Viewers are more interested in sports and weather than in personal interest stories. 
 
 This just compares interests between two kinds of new content. 
 Even if false, doesn’t show that no one switched from World News. 
  Does not kill the argument.

❌  (B) The programming content of Nighttime News is more closely aligned with the interests of the overall audience than is the content of World News. 
 
 This is about general audience appeal. 
 But the argument is about viewers switching specifically from World News. 
 If this is false, you could still have a switch. 
  Does not kill the argument.

✅  (C) Some World News viewers liked the new Nighttime News programming better than they liked the World News programming. 
 
 If this were  false  (i.e., no World News viewers preferred Nighttime’s new content), then no viewers would have switched because of the changes. 
  Argument dies.  
  This is the assumption.

❌  (D) There are other possible causes for an increase in the number of viewers of Nighttime News, including a recent ad campaign that aired on many local affiliates. 
 
 This choice  raises an alternative explanation , but it is not an assumption the argument requires. 
 It  weakens  but is not an assumption. 
  Reject.

❌  (E) The quality of World News will remain constant even if Nighttime News improves. 
 
 This is about future quality, irrelevant to why the viewers switched in the past. 
  Reject.

Correct Answer:  ✅  (C)

vibhor1902 · Answer

Hey   chetan2u ,

Thanks for your explanation, just wanted to ask when you say that B has increased the number of viewers and that increase in number is because of people shifting from A to B. My take on it was a little different, can't we have new viewers who didn't use to watch before to either A or B, started watching B because of the new program(primarily I eliminated this answer choice based on this logic).

thanks in advance.

For several years, Nighttime News attracted fewer viewers than World

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For several years, Nighttime News attracted fewer viewers than World

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