Self-study
Professor: During election years, voters often feel that they are insufficiently informed about election issues. ███ ███████ ████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████ ███████ ███████████ ██ ███ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ ███████ █████████ ████████ ██ ████████ ██████ ███ ██ ██████ ████████ █████ ████████ ██████ ████ ███████████ ██ ██████████ ████ ████ ████ ██████ ████████ ██ █████ ███████
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Subscribers to newspapers that cover election issues are no better informed about those issues than are subscribers to newspapers that don’t cover election issues.
Objective
The right answer will be a hypothesis that gives us information about people who subscribe to newspapers covering election issues. This information must explain why these subscribers are no more informed than are people who subscribe to newspapers that don’t cover election issues. The explanation might be that the people who read election coverage are confused by multiple perspectives, or that they don’t bother reading the election coverage that these newspapers run.
5.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████████
a
The newspapers that ███████ █████████ ████████ ██ ████████ ██████ ████ █ ███████ ████████████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ████ ███████ ████ ██████ ████████ ██ █████ ███████
It doesn’t matter how many subscribers these newspapers are reaching. The surprising fact in the stimulus is limited the people who actually are subscribers, no matter how small the number.
b
Many newspapers that ████ ████████ █████████ ████████ ██ ████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ████ ██████ ████████ ██ █████ ███████
These newspapers would fall into the “not covering election issues” category. We need to know why people who subscribe to newspapers that do cover election issues aren’t better-informed.
c
Most regular subscribers ██ ███ ██████████ ████ ███████ █████████ ████████ ██ ████████ ██████ ██████ ████ ███ ████████ █████ █████ ███████
Rather than reading the election coverage, these subscribers just do the crossword. This explains why they’re no better informed than the other subscribers: because they don’t even read the coverage that these newspapers offer.
d
Many of the ██████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ███ ██████████████ ████████ █████ ████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ███████████
This exceeds the scope of the stimulus. We care about people who do subscribe to newspapers, so facts about people who don't subscribe to newspapers are irrelevant.
e
Most voters get ███ ████████ ██ █████ ███████████ █████ ████████ ██████ ████ ███████ █████ ████ ███████████
We don’t care where most voters get their information from. We care about the ones who subscribe to newspapers, and this doesn't tell us anything new about subscribers.