Self-study
Normally, political candidates send out campaign material in order to influence popular opinion. ███ ███ ██████ ███ ███ ███████ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ ████ ███████ ████████████ ███ ███ ████ █████████ ████ ███ ██ ████ █████ █████████ ██ █████████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███████ █ ████ ███████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ████████ ███ ████ ████████ ███████ ██ █████████ ██ █████ █████ ██████ ██ ███████████
What Was Ebsen's Campaign Actually Doing?
The first sentence gives us background: normally, campaign material is sent out to influence popular opinion. That's just how things usually work. But the word "But" in the second sentence signals a departure from the norm. Ebsen's ads were sent to too few households to actually influence popular opinion. So whatever Ebsen's campaign was doing, it wasn't the normal thing.
The word "evidently" in the third sentence signals the author's inference, the thing she's figured out based on the evidence. Her conclusion: the ads were sent out to test their potential to influence popular opinion. In other words, Ebsen's campaign wasn't trying to change minds with these ads. It was running an experiment to see which ads could change minds later.
The last sentence gives us two premises supporting this conclusion. First, the ads covered a wide variety of topics. That's consistent with a test: you'd want to try out different messages to see which ones land. Second, Ebsen's campaign has been spending heavily on follow-up surveys to gauge the ads' effect on recipients. Spending money to measure an ad's effect is exactly what you'd do if the point of the ads was to figure out which ones work.
The Main Conclusion
On Main Conclusion questions, identify the conclusion before looking at the answers. The conclusion here is the sentence with "evidently": the ads were sent out to test their potential to influence popular opinion. Everything else either sets up the context or provides support for this inference.
A helpful way to confirm: ask yourself what the author is trying to prove. She's not trying to prove that the ads went to too few households. That's just an observed fact she takes for granted. She's using that fact, along with the variety of topics and the follow-up spending, to prove that the purpose of the ads was to test their effectiveness.
8.
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ██████████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ██████
a
Normally, political candidates ████ ███ ████████ ████████ ██ █████████ ███████ ████████
This is background context describing what political candidates normally do. It's not something the author is trying to prove. Nothing in the argument supports the claim that candidates normally send out material to influence opinion. The author simply states it as a known fact to set up the contrast with what Ebsen's campaign did.
b
The recent ads ███ ███████ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ █████████ ███████ ███████ ████████████
This is a premise, not the conclusion. The author treats this as an established fact and uses it to support her inference about the purpose of the ads. If you think (B) is the conclusion, ask yourself: what other line in the argument is offered to prove that the ads were sent to too few households? None. The author just asserts it. That's a sign it's not a conclusion. The author never tries to convince us that the ads went to too few people. She takes that for granted and asks: given that, what were they for?
c
The recent ads ███ ███████ ████████ ████ ████ ███ ██ ████ █████ █████████ ██ █████████ ███████ ████████
This is the conclusion. The word
d
The recent ads ███ █████████ ████████ ███████ █ ████ ███████ ██ ███████
This is a premise that supports the conclusion. The wide variety of topics is consistent with a test, because you'd want to try different messages to see which ones resonate. But nothing in the argument is offered to prove that the ads covered a wide variety of topics. The author just states it as a fact.
e
Ebsen’s campaign has ████ ████████ ███████ ██ █████████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ███████████
This is a premise that supports the conclusion. Spending heavily on follow-up surveys to measure the ads' effect is exactly the kind of behavior you'd expect from a campaign running a test. But, like the other premises, nothing in the argument is offered to prove that the campaign has been spending heavily on follow-up. The author states it as a fact and uses it to support her inference.