In recent years, most of the news stories in News Company's newspaper have been licensed and reprinted from other news organizations. For its Sunday editions, News Company recently announced that it intends to decrease the amount of newspaper space devoted to news stories and increase the amount devoted to advertisements. News Company currently has more advertisers who want to place ads in its newspaper than it is able to accommodate, and the number of news stories written by News Company's own staff is increasing steadily. Thus, if current trends in news story writing and demand for advertising space continue, News Company's dependence on licensed, reprinted news stories is likely to decrease soon.

The answer to which of the following would be most useful in evaluating the argument?

1. When, if ever, will the amount of space filled by stories written by News Company's own staff exceed the amount of space filled by advertisements?
2. Is News Company among the news organizations that depend most on licensed and reprinted news stories?
3. What proportion of space in News Company's newspapers is filled by cartoons and other graphics?
4. Is News Company planning to increase, maintain, or decrease the total amount of space available in its newspaper?
5. Has the amount of space devoted to news stories been decreased and the amount devoted to advertisements been increased in any Sunday editions that have already been released?


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concl: dependence on external stories will reduce if current trend of increase in the number of internal stories written and high demand for advertising space.

basis: there is more demand than supply for advertising space in the newspaper, for this newspaper intends to increase advertising space for its sunday edition...there's an uptrend in number of internal stories being written...

loopholes in reasoning: could there be a possibility of the newspaper wanting to increase both its news article space and is the current supply of news articles sufficient to ensure a reduction in dependence on external stories?

A. even if more space gets filled by internally written news articles it does not harm the argument because it will not affect the predicted reduction in sourcing news articles externally. even a decrease won't harm the argument, because we've been told that advertising demand on the newspaper is more than supply.

B. doesn't affect the argument because even if it reprints the most it does not affect the predicted reduction in sourcing news articles externally...

C.we're concerned only with space for articles

E.Has the amount of space devoted to news stories been decreased and the amount devoted to advertisements been increased in any Sunday editions that have already been released?
if the answer to this question is 'yes'...then it doesn't affect the predicted reduction is sourcing articles externally, because if space has been reduced then there's no need to source...
if the answer to this question is 'no' it means the space devoted to news articles is the same...the conclusion remains unharmed...

D. however if the news company plans to increase the space of the newspaper...then with the information given to us, we don't know if the current supply of internally articles will suffice to ensure a reduction in externally sourced articles...hence answer is D
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