People aged 46 to 55 spend more money per capita than people of any other age group. So it is puzzling that when comp...

Victoria on May 7, 2020

Hi @kenken,

The paradox in the passage is that people aged 46 to 55 spend the most money per capita of any age group yet television advertisers focus their attention almost exclusively on people aged 25 and under.

This paradox is resolved by answer choice (D). If we assume that people older than 25 almost never change their buying habits, then advertisements will have little to no effect on the products that they choose to purchase. Therefore, it would make the most sense for advertisers to focus on those aged 25 and under as advertisements would be more likely to influence their purchasing decisions.

The ad company would likely still benefit from advertising products that are popular among older generations; however, the maximum benefit = especially for companies selling products which are not popular among older generations - would be derived by targeting younger generations who may be influenced to purchase their product.

There is definitely a fine line to walk between analyzing a passage and over-analyzing it. Before examining the answer choices, try to make sure that you have a thorough understanding of what is being said by the passage.

In this case, you would want to understand exactly what the paradox is before examining the answer choices and then look for the answer choice which remedies the identified paradox.

If you focus on developing the underlying skills and recognizing patterns in question types, it will become easier for you to quickly analyze the passage and find the correct answer.

Unfortunately, there is no magic technique except for practice. Keep up the good work and please let us know if you have any further questions.