Compared to us, people who lived a century ago had very few diversions

Question

Compared to us, people who lived a century ago had very few diversions to amuse them. Therefore they likely read much more than we do today.

Which of the following statements, if true, most weakens the argument?

A. Many of the books published a century ago were of low literary quality.

B. On average, people who lived a century ago had considerably less leisure time than we do today.

C. The number of books sold today is larger than it was a century ago.

D. On the average, books today cost slightly less is relation to other goods than they did a century ago.

E. One of the popular diversions of a century ago was horse racing.

mohshu · Answer

looks like B...let me try to explain 
A - quality is irrelevant
B- only if people have leisure time, they will read more,,,what if they dnt have leisure time... clearly weakens.
C- number is irrelevant
D - cost is also out of scope
E- looks convincing,,but less convincing than B

amanvermagmat · Answer

Main argument is that: people in past likely read much more Because they had very few diversions to amuse them in comparison to today.

A - eliminated because argument doesn't mention anything about quality of books effecting the reading.

C - just because more books are sold today, doesn't mean that people today read more. Population today is much more than it was 100 years ago, so this point is refuted.

D - eliminated because the author doesn't mention 'cost of reading' being a valid cause. This is about having a diversion or amusement, not related to the cost of the diversion

E - even if horse racing was popular back then so what? That is just one diversion of the past, but we don't know whether there were many more diversions then or not. Eliminated

Only B seems correct, because if people back then had considerably less leisure time than we have today, then they were less likely to engage in their available diversions - whether those be reading or something else. Hence  B answer

goforgmat · Answer

the correlation between leisure time and reading for amusement isnt given straightaway. Even if they had less leisure time ,they could have read more than we do today. There isnt a better answer but i feel this question isn't a sound one. Experts Please let me know your thoughts on this one.

r19 · Answer

goforgmat  - Yup I agree with you. B doesn't seem right to me as well

Prateek176 · Answer

amanvermagmat  How can we assume that population today is much more? Moreover if they had less leisure time then probably they would have been less likely to engage not only in other diversions but also in reading. Can anyone please clarify this?

Abhishek009 · Answer

Few diversions to amuse = More opportunity to read book.

(A) , (C) and (D) are clearly out of scope for the highlighted reasons...

(E) Talks about popular diversion as horse-riding which is one of the few Diversions available to people a century ago.

Only (B) weakens the argument by stating that fewer amusements were not responsible for more reading habit, further it suggests that people were genuinely Interested in reading despite less leisure time available to them than we have now....

Prateek176 · Answer

Abhishek009  Still didn't understand why C is out of scope. If The number of books sold earlier was less than that sold a century earlier, doesn't it mean that people read less earlier??
I perfectly understand why B is a weakener but i am still not fully convinced with C as a wrong choice. A lil help!!!

GMATNinja · Answer

Maybe I can help...

The number of books sold does not necessarily tell us anything about how much people read.

Maybe a century ago most people got their books for free from libraries or borrowed books from friends. 
 Just because you BUY a lot of books does not necessarily mean that you read a lot. Maybe you bought the books to give them as gifts or bought them and never read them. 
 Maybe book sales have increased only because population has increased. The average number of book purchases per person might be the same now as it was a century ago (or even less!). If population has grown, the  number  of book sales would be higher today.

Increased book sales do not necessarily imply increased reading frequency. Eliminate choice (C).

I hope that helps!

D4498 · Answer

1920-less diversion for entertainment, more reading
2020-more diversion, less reading
 How to Weaken this?
Only if we know that not bcz of less diversion but bcz they get less leisure time and in that one could read a book.
For example, if in 
1920-30 min leisure time
One can read a book
2020-120 min ,one can surely visit mall ,cinema halls etc which one can't do in 30 min.
Hope it helps

Posted from my mobile device

Deep32470 · Answer

I got confused in selecting the most apt one in this.

For B, much leisure time may or may not corresponds to much reading.
It may be that out of the less time that people of last century spends more time in reading than the time people of today's generation will read in much leisure time.
Hence, i was confused

Posted from my mobile device

VerbalBot · Answer

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Compared to us, people who lived a century ago had very few diversions

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