Self-study
Historian: Support Radio drama requires its listeners to think about what they hear, picturing for themselves such dramatic elements as characters' physical appearances and spatial relationships. ██████ █████ ███████ ████████████ ███ ████ █████ █████ ███ ███ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ ██████████████ █████████ █████████ █████ █████████████ ███████ ██████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ██ ██ ████ ███████████
Summary
The author concludes that today’s generation of television viewers do not exercise their imaginations as often as earlier generations did.
Why does the author believe this?
Because radio drama requires listeners to imagine dramatic elements such as physical appearances and spatial relationships. In addition, radio drama was the dominant form of popular entertainment for earlier generations.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that today’s generation of television viewers does not engage in any activity that requires them to exercise their imaginations as often as radio dramas required.
The author assumes that television does not require its users to use their imaginations as often as radio drama required.
20.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████████
a
People spend as ████ ████ ████████ ██████████ █████ ██ ██████ █████ █████████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ███████
Not necessary, because if it were not true — if people spend LESS time watching TV today as people spent listening to radio in the past — that doesn’t undermine the reasoning. It’s still the case that today’s generation doesn’t listen to as much radio drama, and the author can believe that this implies they don’t exercise their imaginations as much as past generations.
b
The more familiar █ ████ ██ ███████ █████████████ ████████ ███ ████ ██████ ███ █████████ ███ ██ ████████ █████ █████████████
Not necessary, because the concept of an entertainment becoming “more familiar” has no connection to the reasoning. The argument isn’t based on a relationship between familiarity of entertainment and less exercise of imagination. It’s based on the fact that radio drama in particular requires imagination; this is true regardless of how familiar radio drama became.
c
Because it inhibits ███ ███████████ ██ ███████████ ██████████ ██ █ ████████████ ███████████ ████ ██ ███████ ██████████████
Not necessary, because the concept of what entertainment is desirable or undesirable is irrelevant. The author doesn’t take a position on whether TV is undesirable; the argument concerns whether people today exercise their imaginations less than earlier generations did.
d
For today's generation ██ ██████████ ████████ ███████ █████ ███ ███ ████ ██ █████ ██ █ ██████ ███ ██████████ ███ ████████████
Necessary, because if it were not true — if there is SOMETHING that fills the gap left by radio as a medium for exercising the imagination — then we cannot conclude that today’s generation of TV viewers exercises their imaginations less. For example, maybe they read more books than earlier generations did, and books could require imagination. The author must assume this isn’t true in order to reach his conclusion.
e
Television drama does ███ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ █████ ████ ████ ████
Not necessary, because even if TV does require its viewers to think about what they see, it can still not require imagination. The key distinction the author assumes between radio and TV is that radio requires its listeners to imagine elements like physical appearances and spatial relationships. TV, the author assumes, does not.