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.
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.
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.
A
it will lead them to develop a taste for candy and sweets
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 may become frustrated by their difficulty and stop reading altogether
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 interferes with the development of appreciation for more challenging literature
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 undermine the positive teaching done by parents
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 so enthralled with books that they will want to spend all their time reading
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.
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that the stonemasons who made the Parthenon’s columns may have relied on a scale drawing of a column. This is because a scale drawing of a column for the temple at Didyma was discovered, and this drawing made it possible to determine the correct width at every height of column, which is something that we observe in the columns of the Parthenon.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the stonemasons who made the Parthenon used methods that were similar in at least some ways to the methods used by the stonemasons who made the temple at Didyma. The author also assumes that there was nothing about the columns at the Parthenon that could have prevented scale drawings from being useful in making the columns.
A
Modern attempts to recreate columns like those at the Parthenon have only been partially successful.
Whether later attempts have been successful doesn’t shed light on what the original stonemasons used to make the columns.
B
The construction of the temple at Didyma was begun over a century after the Parthenon was constructed.
This just points out a difference between the Parthenon and the temple at Didyma. It opens the possibility that scale drawings may not have been around when the Parthenon was created, but only came about later.
C
Scale drawings were commonly used in many types of construction in ancient Greece.
This strengthens the author’s conclusion by making it more plausible that scale drawings were used for the Parthenon. It establishes that the scale drawings used for the temple at Didyma were not just a rare, unique method.
D
The surviving columns at Didyma are almost twice as tall as the columns at the Parthenon.
The relative height of the columns doesn’t shed light on what the stonemasons who made the Parthenon used.
E
The Parthenon’s stonemasons had considerable experience carving columns before they started work on the Parthenon.
The level of experience of the stonemasons doesn’t have any clear impact on whether they used scale drawings or not.
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Since the LargeCo supermarket chain started advertising its store-brand products, sales of its store-brand milk increased more than sales of its store-brand yogurt, even though advertising generally has a bigger impact on consumers' brand choices for yogurt than for milk.
Objective
The right answer will be a hypothesis that provides an alternative explanation for the change in sales of LargeCo’s store-brand milk and yogurt after LargeCo started advertising its store-brand products. This hypothesis will either explain the larger increase in store-brand milk or the smaller increase in store-brand yogurt.
A
There has recently been increased demand at LargeCo stores for the chain’s own brand of yogurt as well as for other brands of yogurt.
This furthers the discrepancy rather than resolving it. If demand for LargeCo yogurt and other yogurt is increasing, why are sales of LargeCo yogurt increasing less than sales of its milk? We still need an alternative explanation for this phenomenon.
B
The typical shopper going to LargeCo for the purpose of buying milk does not go with the intention of also buying yogurt.
Because we have no idea how many shoppers go to LargeCo “for the purpose of buying milk,” this doesn’t explain the discrepancy in LargeCo milk and yogurt sales. Perhaps very few shoppers go to LargeCo to buy milk and these shoppers have little impact on the store’s overall sales.
C
Shoppers at LargeCo tend to purchase the chain’s own brand of dairy products more frequently than other brands of dairy products.
Because milk and yogurt are both dairy products, the fact that shopper tend to buy LargeCo dairy products more than other products doesn’t explain why LargeCo’s milk sales increased more than its yogurt sales.
D
Supermarkets throughout the entire nation have experienced a sharp decrease in sales of yogurt recently.
Nationwide declines in yogurt sales offer an alternative explanation for why LargeCo’s milk sales increased more than its yogurt sales after it began advertising store-brand products, despite advertising usually having a stronger effect on yogurt brand choices than on milk.
E
Consumers tend to purchase store brands of yogurt, but purchase whichever brand of milk is least expensive.
Because we don’t know whether LargeCo milk is more or less expensive than other milk, (E) doesn’t explain why LargeCo’s milk sales increased more than its yogurt sales.