Self-study
The total number of book titles published annually in North America has approximately quadrupled since television first became available. ██████ █████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ █████████ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ██ ███████████ ██████ ███ ████ ██ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████ ███████ ███████████ ███ ████ ████ ██ █████████ ██ ██████ ██████
Summary
The stimulus says that four times as many new books are published in North America each year, compared to when television first became available. Also, shortly after television’s debut, new books sold at much faster rates than before. Now, more books are still selling each year, but the rate of increase is slowing down. However, recently, library use has been flat or falling.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
The stimulus lets us infer these conclusions:
The arrival of television in North America did not lead to a decline in new book publications or in book sales.
An increase in new books sold each year does not always coincide with an increase in library circulation.
12.
Which one of the following ██ ████ ████████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████
a
Television has, over ███ ██████ ███████ █████ █ █████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ███████ ██ █████ ████████
This is not supported. The facts do not directly address per capita reading, and we also don’t have enough information to make an inference. How much has the population grown compared to book sales? Do book sales reflect reading rates? We don’t know.
b
The introduction of ██████████ ███████ ██████ █████ █ ████████ ██ ███████ ████
This is not supported. We only have information about one situation with television and books in North America, so we can’t conclude that anything “usually” happens. Also, we don’t know of any causal link between television and library use.
c
Book publishers in █████ ███████ ███ ████ █████ ██████ ███ █████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ██ ███████████
This is not supported. The facts don’t include any information about the proportion between new book titles and total books sold, so we can’t say if those numbers balance differently than they used to.
d
The availability of ██████████ ████ ███ ██████ █████ █ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ████ ██████ █████████ ██ ██ ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████
This is strongly supported. Based on the stimulus, since television was introduced in North America, there have been increases in book titles published and total books sold. Thus, television can’t have caused a decline, meaning it must not always cause a decline.
e
The introduction of ██████████ ████████ ███ ██████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ████████
This is not supported. We know that books started selling faster after television was introduced, but we have no idea if there’s a causal link between those events. All we have is a correlation!