Self-paced
Tallulah: The columnist attributes the decline of interest in novels to consumerism, technology, and the laziness of people who prefer watching television to reading a novel. ████████ ██ ████████ ████ ███████████ ███ █████████ ███ ██████████ █████████ █████████ ██ ██ ██████ ████████ ████ ████████████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ██ ████ █████████████████ ████ ██ ██ ██ ███████████ ███ ████████████████████ ████ ████ ███████████ ██████████ ████████████ █████████ ███ █████ ██ █████ █████ ███ █████████ ██████████
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
Tallulah concludes that the columnist overlooked important evidence in his explanation of the decline of interest in novels. The columnist’s conclusion (which Tallulah references as context for her argument) is that consumerism, technology, and laziness are causing the decline of interest in novels. To support her statement that the columnist’s conclusion is based on incomplete evidence, Tallulah references the difference in quality between contemporary fiction and other types of writing: she says that much of contemporary fiction is low-quality, whereas high quality writing can be found in newspapers, magazines, professional journals, and other types of books.
Identify Conclusion
Tallulah’s conclusion is that the columnist’s idea is based on incomplete evidence: “In reaching this conclusion, the columnist has overlooked important evidence.”
18.
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ████ ██████████ ██ ██████████ █████████
a
Contemporary fiction is █████████ ███████ ██ ██ ████████████ ███████████ ███ ██ ████ ███████ ████████
This is part of the evidence that Tallulah claims the columnist overlooked. Further, the language in this answer is too strong; Tallulah only said that the poor quality of contemporary fiction is relevant, not that contemporary fiction is unpopular because of its poor quality.
b
The columnist's claim ████ ██████ ███ █████ █████████ ██ ████████████ ███████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ██████
Tallulah does not go as far as to say that the columnist’s claim is false; she just says that the columnist has overlooked important evidence, so this answer is too strong and is not supported from the argument.
c
The view expressed ██ ███ █████████ ███ ██████ ███████ ███████████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ █████████
This is Tallulah’s main conclusion. The rest of the stimulus is either context (Tallulah’s summary of the columnist’s argument) or support for her conclusion (the evidence that Tallulah considers to be relevant).
d
People read as ████ ██ ████ ████ ███ ███ ████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ███ ███████
This idea is not supported by the argument. Tallulah does not make any claims about how much people read now or how much people read in the past.
e
A large number ██ ████████████ ███████████ ██████████ ████████████ █████████ ███ ██████████ █████ ███ █████████ ██████████
Tallulah does say that many good newspapers, magazines, journals, and nonfiction books are available, but she provides this information as a premise to support her conclusion; this is not the main conclusion.