Self-study
Children should be discouraged from reading Jones's books. ███████ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ██████ █████ ████████ ████████ ██████████ ███████ ███████████ ███ ██████ ███ ██████ █████████ ███ █████ █████ █████ ███ ██████ █████ ██ █████ ██████ ███ ███████ ████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███████ █████ ██ ████ ████████
Summary
The author concludes that we should discourage kids from reading Jones's books. As support, he draws an analogy between Jones's books and candy in order to highlight why Jones's books are bad for kids. Specifically, he claims that reading Jones's books is analogous to eating candy in two ways:
1. It's fun for a moment, but it doesn't provide lasting value.
2. It spoils the appetite for better things.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
We are looking for something about reading Jones’s books to fill in the blank that completes the analogy and is relevantly similar to the stimulus’ claims about eating candy.
The problem with letting children read Jones’s books is that...
...they do not provide long lasting value or intellectual nourishment.
...Jones’s books spoil children’s appreciation for better literature.
1.
Which one of the following ████ █████████ █████████ ███ ████████ ██████
a
it will lead ████ ██ ███████ █ █████ ███ █████ ███ ██████
The effects of reading Jones’s books are being analogized to the effects of eating candy. Candy is brought up because the author believes there's a key similarity between the books and candy—not because there's any kind of cause-and-effect relationship between the two.
b
too many children ███ ██████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██████████ ███ ████ ███████ ██████████
Unsupported. This is not supported by the analogy because the difficulty of Jones’s books is not relevantly similar to any of the stimulus’ claims about eating candy.
c
their doing so ██████████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ ████████████ ███ ████ ███████████ ██████████
This is strongly supported by the analogy and shows a relevant similarity between eating candy and reading Jones’s books. Just as eating candy “dulls one’s taste for better fare,” reading Jones’s books dulls children’s taste for more challenging literature in the future.
d
their message may █████████ ███ ████████ ████████ ████ ██ ███████
Unsupported. The author claims eating candy is fun for a moment, but doesn't provide lasting value, and it spoils the appetite for better things. (D) doesn’t complete the analogy or show how undermining parents’ teaching is relevantly similar to the effects of eating candy.
e
children may become ██ ██████████ ████ █████ ████ ████ ████ ████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ████ ███████
Unsupported. We know eating candy “provides intense, short-term sensory stimulation.” We don’t know that this then causes children to spend all their time eating candy. Similarly, we can’t conclude that Jones’s books cause children to spend all their time reading.