Hovkial wrote:
Watching music videos from the 1970s would give the viewer the impression that the music of the time was dominated by synthesizer pop and punk rock. But this would be a misleading impression. Because music videos were a new art form at the time, they attracted primarily cutting-edge musicians.
Which one of the following arguments is most similar in its reasoning to that of the argument above?
(A) Our view of pre-printing-press literature can never be accurate, because the surviving works of ancient authors are those that were deemed by copyists most likely to be of interest to future readers.
(B) Our memory of 1960s TV shows could hardly be improved, because so many of the television programs of the era are still rerun today.
(C) Future generations’ understanding of today’s publishing trends will be distorted if they judge by works published in CD-ROM format, since it is primarily publishers interested in computer games that are using CD-ROM.
(D) Our understanding of silent films is incomplete, because few filmmakers of the time realized that the film stock they were using would disintegrate over time.
(E) Our notion of fashion trends will probably be accurate if we rely on TV fashion programs, despite the fact that these programs deliberately select the most outrageous outfits in order to get the viewers’ attention.
Pre-thinkingWe need to find a choice with a similar reasoning to the original argument.
In general terms:
We are given a view. The author thinks that such view is
misleading. We are given that the reason why the view is misleading is that the focus is on the wrong aspect of what is evaluated.
POE:
(A)
Our view of pre-printing-press literature can never be accurate, because the surviving works of ancient authors are those that were deemed by copyists most likely to be of interest to future readers.
While per the original argument the view is misleading, here the view can never be accurate. OUT(B) Our memory of 1960s TV shows could hardly be improved, because so many of the television programs of the era are still rerun today.
The conclusion here is that the memory can never be improved while the conclusion of the original argument is that a view is misleading. OUT(C) Future generations’ understanding of today’s publishing trends will be distorted if they judge by works published in CD-ROM format, since it is primarily publishers interested in computer games that are using CD-ROM.
In both the original argument and this option we have the element of the distorted view and the element of the focus on the wrong aspect. Correct(D) Our understanding of silent films is incomplete, because few filmmakers of the time realized that the film stock they were using would disintegrate over time.
Again, distorted view versus incomplete understanding. OUT(E) Our notion of fashion trends will probably be accurate if we rely on TV fashion programs, despite the fact that these programs deliberately select the most outrageous outfits in order to get the viewers’ attention.
This option goes into the opposite direction. While the author in the original argument says that something is biased, here we know that something could be accurate. OUT