Political opinion and analysis outside the mainstream rarely are found on television talk shows, and it might be thou...

Ravi on March 6, 2019

@Shiyi-Zhang,

Happy to help. This is a strengthen with a necessary premise question.
We're looking for an answer choice that, if false, would make the
argument fall apart. The answer choice must be true in order for the
argument to make any sense.

The stimulus concludes that political opinions and analyses aired on
talk shows are typically bland and innocuous. The stimulus says that
this is because TV stations are driven by the same economic forces as
sellers of tangible goods. The TV stations desire a large audience
and, as a result, they have TV shows that provide appeal to lots of
people.

In reading the stimulus, we see that there's a large gap between the
premises and the conclusion. We're told in the premises that TV
stations try to appeal to the masses, and the conclusion says that
political opinions on these stations will, therefore, be bland. The
correct answer choice will likely have something to do with this gap.

(C) says, "Each television viewer holds some opinion that is outside
the political mainstream, but those opinions are not the same for
everyone"

The negation of (C) is that not every television viewer holds some
opinion that is outside the political mainstream, but those opinions
are not the same for everyone. If (C)'s negation were true, the
argument is not wrecked. Regardless of whether (C) is true or false,
neither scenario helps us to bridge the gap between TV stations
providing people with what they want and the political opinions on
shows being bland. We can get rid of this choice.

(B) says, "There are television viewers who might refuse to watch
television talk shows that they knew would be controversial and
disturbing"

(B)'s negation is that there are no television viewers who might
refuse to watch television talk shows that they knew would be
controversial and disturbing.

If (B)'s negation were true, then the argument in the stimulus would
fall apart. This means that (B) must be true in order for the argument
to stand a chance. If people were fine with watching controversial
things, then why would the political opinions be bland and innocuous?
In order for the stimulus to make sense, there must be some people
that wouldn't watch shows with controversial opinions. This is the
correct answer choice.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!