Sociologist: The intended function of news is to give us information

Question

Sociologist: The intended function of news is to give us information on which to act. But in a consumer society, news becomes a product to be manufactured and dispensed to the consumer. An enormous industry for the production and consumption of news has evolved, and we ingest news with an insatiable appetite. Under such circumstances, news is primarily entertaining and cannot, therefore, serve its intended function.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the sociologist's argument depends?

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the sociologist's argument depends?

(A) News that serves its intended function should not be entertaining.
(B) Most viewers prefer that news be entertaining
(C) News has only one important function
(D) News that primarily entertains does not give us information on which to act.
(E) A news industry that aims to make a profit inevitably presents news as entertainment.

sj296 · Answer

Conclusion: News is not serving its intended purpose of providing information on which to act. 
Premise: News is entertaining

So, entertaining news does not give information to act.

D option should be the answer.

Aviral1995 · Answer

VeritasKarishma   GMATNinja   Bunuel  is A wrong because its an opinion "should be" is used and therefore gives wrong meaning

SidBoy77 · Answer

GMATNinja  Can you please help me with this.

hientranzx · Answer

Sociologist: The intended function of news is to give us information on which to act. But in a consumer society, news becomes a product to be manufactured and dispensed to the consumer. An enormous industry for the production and consumption of news has evolved, and we ingest news with an insatiable appetite. Under such circumstances, news is primarily entertaining and cannot, therefore, serve its intended function.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the sociologist's argument depends?

1. function of news: give us information on which to act
2. entertaining news cannot serve its intended function

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the sociologist's argument depends?

(A) News that serves its intended function should not be entertaining.
(B) Most viewers prefer that news be entertaining
(C) News has only one important function
 (D) News that primarily entertains does not give us information on which to act. 
(E) A news industry that aims to make a profit inevitably presents news as entertainment.

GMATNinja · Answer

Hi SidBoy77 , can you tell us a bit more about what you're thinking and where you're getting stuck? Or are you completely lost and have no idea where to even begin? The more you tell us, the easier it will be for us to help (and the more likely we'll respond with something that's actually useful!). Feel free to re-tag us, and be as specific as possible.

Crytiocanalyst · Answer

(A) News that serves its intended function should not be entertaining.
It might have bithe the functioning we might just know about it

(B) Most viewers prefer that news be entertaining
Viewers intrests were never brought into the discussion it could be that they don't like entertainment and are watching whatever is avaliable

(C) News has only one important function
There may be multiple purposes we just don't know

(D) News that primarily entertains does not give us information on which to act.
This can be clearly infered from the passage

(E) A news industry that aims to make a profit inevitably presents news as entertainment.
This ia an oversimplification that we cannot decide

THerefore IMO D

SidBoy77 · Answer

GMATNinja  I am able to understand that assumption should be something which links entertaining and intended function. Based on that I was able to eliminate option B,C and E. I was confused between A and D. I felt that option D is restatement of the conclusion "Under such circumstances, news is primarily entertaining and cannot, therefore, serve its intended function." Therefore, I marked option A. Is there any grey rule that statement containing "Should be" in Assumption question will not be correct in GMAT. Can you help me with my approach.

GMATNinja · Answer

There sadly aren't any rules about using the word "should" in an assumption question. In fact, trying to memorize any such "rules" for CR questions is unlikely to be helpful -- you're almost certain to find questions that don't follow the "rule," and your accuracy will suffer.

Instead, carefully break down the passage and assess each answer choice.

In this passage, the author tells us that the intended function of news is "to give us information on which to act." However, our consumer society has created an "enormous industry for the production and consumption of news."

The author concludes from the above that "under such circumstances, news is primarily entertaining and cannot, therefore, serve its intended function."

The question asks us to find an assumption on which the argument  depends . In other words, which answer choice absolutely MUST be true in order for the conclusion to hold up?

Here's (A):
 
The word "should" is very important to understanding this answer choice, even if there's no rule saying that an option with "should" is ALWAYS incorrect.

In the passage, the author talks about how the world  actually is . In this reality, the news cannot serve its intended function.

(A), on the other hand, talks about how the world SHOULD -- or  ought  -- to be. According to (A), informational news  ought  to follow certain guidelines.

Do we know how the author thinks the news  ought  to be? No, we have no idea -- maybe the author longs for a world in which news can both be informational and entertaining at the same time. Or maybe the author thinks that news should be super boring and dry. Because the conclusion holds up regardless of what "should" be true, the argument does not depends on (A).

Compare that to (D):
 
The author concludes that because news is primarily entertaining, it cannot serve its intended purpose.

But what if it could do  both  of those things? Then the argument falls apart -- the news would be entertaining AND provide information on which to act at the same time.

(D) closes that gap by telling us that the news CAN'T do both at the same time. Because the argument falls apart without (D), we've found the assumption on which the argument depends.

I hope that helps!

Sociologist: The intended function of news is to give us information

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Sociologist: The intended function of news is to give us information

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