Self-study
Barr: The National Tea Association cites tea's recent visibility in advertising and magazine articles as evidence of tea's increasing popularity. ████████ █ ███████ ███████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██████ ███ ███████ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ██████ ███ ███ ████ ██ █████ ███ ███ █████ ██ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ████ ███ ██ ██ ████ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ████ ████
Summarize Argument
Barr concludes that tea is not more popular now than in previous years. As support, he references the fact that the Survey Group, a neutral polling company, found no change in the amount of tea sold over the past 20 years.
Notable Assumptions
Barr assumes that the survey conducted by the Survey Group was conducted with a representative sample that was large enough to produce generalizable results. Barr also assumes that the survey was high quality, and not conducted in a way that would bias the results.
5.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ██████ █████████
a
The National Tea ███████████ ███ █████████ ████ ██ █████ ██ █████ ███ ███ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ █████
The fact that the National Tea Association plans to do its own study does nothing to cast doubt on the validity of the Survey Group’s study; this is irrelevant to Barr’s argument.
b
A survey by ██ █████████ ███████ ████████████ █████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ █████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ██████ ███ █████ ██ ████
Barr’s argument is about whether or not tea is more popular; the public’s willingness to try new types of tea is irrelevant to how popular tea is in general.
c
The Survey Group ██ ██████ ██ █ ██████████ ██ ████████ ████████ ███████
(C) doesn’t provide any information about how the survey was actually conducted, so it doesn’t weaken the argument.
d
The stores from █████ ███ ██████ █████ █████████ ███████████ █████ ███ █████ ███ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ██████ ██ ███ ████████
This weakens the argument because it shows that the survey wasn’t representative. If all of the stores were from the same small region of the country, then we can only make a conclusion about that specific region; we can’t make broad, generalized conclusions.
e
Tea has been ███ ███████ ██ ██ █████████ ███ █████████ ███████████ ████████ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ███ ████████████
The argument is about whether or not tea is more popular now; we don’t care about factors that could have impacted the popularity of tea.