Professor: During election years, voters often feel that they are insufficiently informed about election issues. And studies have revealed the surprising fact that regular subscribers to the few newspapers that do provide extensive coverage of election issues are no better informed about election issues than subscribers to newspapers that have very little coverage of these issues.
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Subscribers to newspapers that cover election issues are no better informed than 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 how these subscribers aren’t more-informed than people who subscribe newspapers that don’t cover election issues. The explanation will likely be that the people who read election coverage are confused by multiple perspectives, or that the subscribers don’t bother reading the election coverage that these newspapers run.
A
The newspapers that provide extensive coverage of election issues have a smaller circulation, on average, than the newspapers that provide very little coverage of these issues.
It doesn’t matter how many subscribers these newspapers are reaching. We need to know about the people who subscribe to them.
B
Many newspapers that once provided extensive coverage of election issues now provide very little coverage of these issues.
These newspapers would fall into the “not covering election” category. We need to know why people who subscribe to newspapers that do cover election issues aren’t more-informed than people who subscribe to other newspapers.
C
Most regular subscribers to the newspapers that provide extensive coverage of election issues rarely read the articles about these issues.
Rather than reading the election coverage, these subscribers do the crossword. 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 voters who feel that they are insufficiently informed about election issues do not subscribe to newspapers.
We care about people who do subscribe to newspapers.
E
Most voters get the majority of their information about election issues from sources other than newspapers.
We don’t care where most voters get their information from. We care about the ones who subscribe to newspapers.
A
Much of what made medieval communities as close-knit as they usually were was the way they went about meeting basic needs.
B
People in industrialized societies today should undertake group tasks similar to those that medieval communities undertook in order to meet their basic needs.
C
In medieval communities, people went about meeting basic needs in ways that required them to come together in respectful cooperation, suspending any private grievances.
D
Medieval communities were usually more close-knit than communities in industrial societies are today because, in medieval communities, people undertook group tasks requiring them to come together in respectful cooperation.
E
Communities in industrial societies today would probably become more close-knit if their members undertook group tasks requiring the participants to come together in respectful cooperation.
Advertisement: At BigFoods, we compare prices for you. We recently determined which items our shoppers buy most often. A varied sample of these items cost 10 percent more at Grocerytown than at BigFoods! None of these regularly purchased grocery items were on sale at BigFoods—these are our everyday prices!
Summary
The advertisement says that BigFoods has figured out which items their shoppers buy most often. BigFoods then picked out some of those items, and compared the cost of that sample to the cost of the same items at Grocerytown, where they cost 10 percent more. The sample also used the regular, non-sale prices at BigFoods.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
Based on this advertisement, we can conclude:
Some items cost at least 10 percent less at BigFoods than those same items cost at Grocerytown.
Some of the items that cost less at BigFoods are among those items most purchased by BigFoods shoppers.
A
BigFoods lowered its everyday prices before making the comparison with Grocerytown.
This is not supported. The advertisement doesn’t mention anything about BigFoods lowering prices, nor does it say anything else that would lead us to that conclusion.
B
Shoppers who usually patronize Grocerytown prefer to shop there for some reason other than its prices.
This is not supported. Based on the advertisement, we don’t know anything about why someone would prefer to shop at Grocerytown, for its prices or otherwise. We don’t even know if the prices are actually higher across the board at Grocerytown, or only on a few items sampled.
C
Some of the items that shoppers at BigFoods buy most often are less expensive at BigFoods than at Grocerytown.
This is strongly supported. The advertisement explains that a sample of the most-purchased items at BigFoods overall cost less than at Grocerytown. That means that some individual most-purchased items must also cost less at BigFoods.
D
Few of the items that shoppers at BigFoods buy most often were on sale at Grocerytown when the price comparison was carried out.
This is not supported. We simply have no way to know whether the items compared were on sale at Grocerytown or not; all we know is that the price of the sample was overall lower at BigFoods.
E
The items that shoppers at BigFoods buy most often are not the same as those that shoppers at Grocerytown buy most often.
This is not supported. The advertisement doesn’t indicate if the items BigFood shoppers buy most often are also bought most often at Grocerytown or not, so we can’t come to a conclusion one way or the other.