Self-study
Increases in the occurrence of hearing loss among teenagers are due in part to their listening to loud music through stereo headphones. ██ █ █████ ██ █████████ ███████ ██ ████████████ ████ █████████ █████████████ ███████ ██ █████ ███████ █████ ██████ ██████████ ████ █████████████ ████ ███ ████ █ █████████ █████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████ ██ ██ █████ ████ ████████ ██ ████ ██████████████ █████ ███ █████████████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ██████████ ████████ █████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██████████ ████ █████████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that headphone manufacturers would not help stop teen hearing loss by making available headphones that turn off when a dangerous level of loudness is reached. Why not? Because teens generally buy headphones themselves.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes teens would choose not to buy headphones that turn off when a dangerous level of loudness is reached. Otherwise, who's buying the headphones wouldn't make a difference to whether these products would be helpful.
7.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ███ █████████
a
Loud music is ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ██ ██████ ███████ ██████ ███████████
It doesn't matter how dangerous stereo headphones are compared to other products, because the argument is only discussing the impact of hearing loss from using stereo headphones.
b
No other cause ██ ███████ ████ ██ █████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ ████ █████ ███████ ██████ ███████████
We already know loud music is bad for hearing. Like (A), this isn't useful because the argument is already limited in scope to hearing loss from loud music on stereo headphones.
c
Parents of teenagers █████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ ████ █████ ███████ ██████ ███████████
This is irrelevant; we only care about what the teens are doing, because the argument is about hearing loss among teens.
d
Teenagers who now ██████ ██ █████ ██ ███████████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ██ ██ ███████ █████ █████████ ██ ███ █████ █████████
This explains why teens wouldn’t buy a line of headphones that avoids this risk: they're actively choosing to listen to dangerously loud music. By affirming the author's assumption, this provides support.
e
A few headphone █████████████ ███████ ████ ██ ██████ ██████ ██████████ ████ █████████████ ████ ███ ████ █ █████████ █████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████
According to the author, offering those headphones won’t make a difference. We’re trying to strengthen that claim, not determine how likely the headphone are to actually be marketed.