Self-study
Students in a first-year undergraduate course were divided into two groups. ███ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ██████ ████ █████ █████████ ████████ █████████ ██ █████ ████████ ██████ ███ ███ █████████ █████ ███ █████████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ████████ ████ █████ █████ █████████ █████ ███ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ███ ███ ██████ ████ ████████ ██████████ ██████ ██████ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ████████
Summary
Two groups of students were given newspaper articles that were identical in every way, except for the headline. When the students answered questions about the article, the answers given by each group were very different, though the answers within each group were similar.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
Headlines can impact the way one reads the content of a newspaper.
1.
Which one of the following ██ ████ ████████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████
a
Readers base their ███████████ ██ ████ ██ ██ █ █████████ ██ █████████ ██████
This is too strong to support. All we know is that a headline can impact one’s perception of what is in the newspaper, not that it is the sole factor.
b
Newspaper headlines hamper █ ████████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ███ █████████████ █████████
There is no information about a reader’s ability to comprehend other articles in the paper.
c
Careless reading is ████ ██████ █████ ██████████ ██████████████ ████ █████ ████ ██████ █████████
There is no information to support a comparative statement between seniors and first-year students. Also, there is no direct support that any students engaged in “careless” reading.
d
Newspaper headlines tend ██ ██ ██████ ███████████
There is no support that newspaper headlines “tend” to be misleading. The stimulus only provides a study that had two different headlines. You need to make a lot of real-world assumptions to make this answer choice work.
e
Newspaper headlines influence █ ████████ ██████████████ ██ ███ █████████████ █████████
This follows logically. The two articles were similar in every respect except the headline and the groups gave vastly different responses.