Balance is particularly important when reporting the background of civil wars and conflicts. Facts must not be delibe...

Katherine January 1, 2019

Hi @SavannahM,

The passage in this question stresses the importance of balanced reporting when covering civil wars and conflicts. However, it warns against “a perverse interpretation of balanced reporting” that conceals “basic injustices in an effort to be even handed.” This misinterpretation would lead to a picture of world in which “every conflict had an equal measure of justice on its side,” which we know not to be true.

You said that you were having some trouble deciding between Answer A and B. Let’s take a look at each choice.

Answer A says that balanced reporting presents the public with a picture of the world in which “all sides to a conflict have equal justification.” The passage warned that “a perverse interpretation of balanced reporting” could lead to a false depiction of conflicts in which each party “had an equal measure of justice on its side”. However, the main point of the argument is that this is not the kind of balanced reporting we need when covering conflicts, but a misinterpretation of the principle. True balanced reporting would present the views of each side fairly but would not necessarily present a world in which all sides of a conflict have “equal justification.”

Answer B says that balanced reporting “requires impartially revealing injustices” no less than presenting the views of each party in a conflict. As discussed above, the passage warned against a “perverse interpretation of balanced reporting” that would conceal injustices “in an effort to be even handed.” The main point of the argument is that the balanced reporting we need in coverage of conflicts not only presents the views of each side fairly, but also reports on injustices where they exist. Because this answer choice correctly expresses this main point, Answer B is the correct choice.

You said that you often have difficulty deciding between two answer choices once you have eliminated the other options. It can be difficult when you are racing the clock, but I would advise you to slow down and read your answer choices carefully again before making a selection. In this example, even though Answer A did use many of the central words and phrases of the argument, the answer expresses a point that is nearly opposite to the main point. It is easy to gloss over the true meaning of an answer when moving quickly through a question, but take the time to go back and make sure you understand what exactly the answer choice is saying.

I hope that’s helpful. Please let us know if you have other questions!

Ravi January 2, 2019

@SavannahM,

First off, it's good that you're finding it easy to narrow the answer
choices down to two. In order to answer these questions with greater
accuracy, I recommend focusing more on understanding each component of
the stimulus and how it relates to the rest of what's being said in
the passage. If this is done well, then the conclusion of the argument
will always stand out, and identifying it in the answer choices will
be much easier.

When we read the stimulus and break the argument down, we find that
the conclusion is that reporting must be balanced but that such
balanced reporting does not justify concealing or glossing over basic
injustices in an effort to be even-handed.

The main premise for this conclusion is that if all of the media were
to adopt such a perverse (i.e., concealing injustices in an effort to
be even-handed) interpretation of balanced reporting, the public would
be given a picture of the world where each party in every conflict had
an equal measure of justice on its side. This sentence is tricky
because it contains within it a premise and conclusion. However, the
conclusion of this sentence (the public would be given a picture of a
world where each party in every conflict had an equal measure of
justice on its side) is a subsidiary conclusion that supports the
overall conclusion of the argument that reporting must be balanced but
that such balanced reporting does not justify concealing or glossing
over basic injustices in an effort to be even-handed.

As Katherine astutely noted, Answer A is almost the opposite of the
entire point. It sounds like you may have mistaken the major premise
of this argument to be the conclusion and then not read Answer A
carefully enough. Also as Katherine noted, slowing down in the
stimulus will help you immensely in being able to have an intuitive
sense of the argument's structure.

Yaya February 3, 2019

I misinterpreted "impartially" to read "impartiality", which is the opposite of the definition of 'balanced' in the passage (Sentence 2). Therefore, I omitted B. Maybe this could help someone else to not make the same mistake.

Ravi February 5, 2019

@tyjez1, happy to see you recognized that! That shows you're paying close attention in your review, and that will pay off. Keep up the great participation on the message board!

aseikhon11 March 28, 2020

Could someone please explain why E is not the correct answer choice, thank you

KerrisciaG October 1, 2020

I am very glad I found this thread as I had this exact problem. I will have to make sure I reread the the passage after narrowing down my choices as this can really help in the beginning stages of my studying.