Self-study
Support Most people feel that they are being confused by the information from broadcast news. ████ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ █████████████ █████ █████████ ███ ███████ ██ ██ ███ █████ ██████ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ███████ ██ █ ███████ █████████ ████ █████ █████ ████ ████ ███████ ███ ███ █████ ██ ███████████ ███████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ███████ ████ █████ ████ ██████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███ █████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ ███████ █████████ ████ ███████ ██ ██████ ██████████
Summary
The author concludes that the information in typical broadcast news stories is poorly organized. This is based on the following:
Most people feel that they’re confused by info in broadcast news. This could be due to the info being delivered too quickly or to its being poorly organized. But, the author attempts to eliminate the “too quickly” explanation by pointing out that the content of a typical news story shows that most people can handle far more density of info than the average info density of a news story.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the fact people can handle a higher density of info than what’s found in a typical news story indicates that people are not confused by the news info being delivered too quickly.
The author also overlooks the possibility that there are other explanations besides being delivered too quickly or being poorly organized that might account for why people are confused by info from broadcast news.
19.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████ ███ ████████ ████████ ██ █████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██████
a
It is not ███ ██████ ██ █████████ ████ ███████ ██ █████ █ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ██████████
Necessary, because if this isn’t true — if the number of news stories that a person is exposed to is the source of confusion — then that undermines the author’s theory that the reason for confusion must be the poor organization of stories. Notice that the author’s premise concerning information density only related to the density of info in a typical story; this overlooks the potential impact of being exposed to many stories.
b
Poor organization of ███████████ ██ █ ████ █████ █████ ██ ██████████ ██ ██████████ ███ ████████████
Not necessary, because the argument concerns the cause of confusion. One can still be confused by the info in a story, even if it’s possible to understand the info.
c
Being exposed to ████ █████████ ████ ███████ ██████ █ █████ ███ █████ ████ █ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ███ █████
Not necessary, because the author believes poor organization is the cause of confusion. So although the author thinks better organization would help someone be less confused, that doesn’t imply the author must think that having more news stories would help someone be less confused.
d
Most people can ████ ████ █ ████ ████ ███████████ ████████
We know that most people can cope with more density than that found in a typical news story. This doesn’t imply the author thinks most people can cope with a “very high” info density. Maybe the info density of a news story is low, and people can cope with just slightly more.
e
Some people are █████ ███████████ ██ ███ ████ ████████████
Not necessary, because the author’s theory is that poor organization is what causes confusion. Poor organization is different from the amount of information.