Self-study
Statistics from the National Booksellers Association indicate that Support during the last five years most bookstores have started to experience declining revenues from the sale of fiction, despite national campaigns to encourage people to read more fiction. ██████████ █████ ███████ █████████ ████ ████ ███████ █████████████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that national campaigns encouraging people to read more fiction have been largely unsuccessful. This is because bookstore revenue from fiction sales has decreased over the last five years.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that bookstore revenues are a reliable signal of fiction reading generally. This means assuming that bookstore fiction sales haven’t been siphoned off by greater library use or sales from another type of retailer. It also means assuming that bookstores haven't sharply lowered fiction prices for some reason.
3.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ █████████
a
Mail order book █████ ████ ███████ ███████████ ██████ ██ ███████ █████ ██████████ ███ ████ ████ ██████
While bookstore fiction sales have decreased, another source of fiction sales has substantially increased—so maybe fiction reading is up overall. This undermines the conclusion that the campaigns failed.
Alternate explanation
Alternate explanation
Weaken: Introduce or support an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
Strengthen: Helps to eliminate an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
b
During the last ████ █████ ███ ████ ██████████ █████ ██ ██████████ ████ ████ ██████████ ███ ███████████ ██████ ████ ███████
Revenue from fiction sales at bookstores has decreased, regardless of how newspaper sales have changed. This doesn’t offset that fact in any way that would weaken the author’s argument.
c
Fierce competition has ██████ ███████████ ██ ████ ███████ █████████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ██ ████████████ ████████████
Biographies aren’t fiction, and we don’t care about books that aren’t fiction. In other words, this is irrelevant.
d
Due to the ████ ████████ ██████████ ████ ████ █████████ ██████ ███ ████ ████ ██████ ████ █████████ ██████ ███████████ █████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████ █████ ██ ████████ ███████ ███ ████████ ███ ███████████
Like (C), this is irrelevant because these sorts of books aren’t fiction. We’re not interested in how many people are reading nonfiction books, only fiction.
e
The National Booksellers ███████████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ ███████ ████ ███████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ████████ ██████████
We care about the effects of the national reading campaign, which we can safely assume is aimed at domestic readership. Overseas customers aren't relevant.
Failed alternate explanation
Failed alternate explanation
Weaken Qs: Answers that try to introduce an alternate explanation, but fall short, or try to explain a different phenomenon.
Strengthen Qs: Answers that try to eliminate an alternate explanation, but fall short, or try to eliminate an explanation for a different phenomenon.