Historian: Radio drama requires its listeners to think about what they hear, picturing for themselves such dramatic ...

Mehran on December 2, 2016

@krys the conclusion of this argument is, "today's generation of television viewers do so less frequently."

"Do so" here refers to exercising one's imagination.

The support for this conclusion?

"Radio drama requires its listeners to think about what they hear, picturing for themselves such dramatic elements as characters' physical appearances and spatial relationships" and "radio drama was the dominant form of popular entertainment" for earlier generations.

This is a Strengthen with Necessary Premise question so we are looking for the answer choice that not only strengthens but that is also required for the argument's conclusion.

The issue with this argument is that the Historian is assuming that just because today's generation does not listen to the radio, they do not exercise their imagination as often.

What if something new is causing them to exercise their imagination?

(D) clearly strengthens this argument by stating that nothing is filling the void of listening to the radio.

"For today's generation of television viewers, nothing fills the gap left by radio as a medium for exercising the imagination."

Now let's negate (D) to make sure that it is also required for the Historian's conclusion.

The negation of (D) is:

"For today's generation of television viewers, SOMETHING fills the gap left by radio as a medium for exercising the imagination."

This would clearly destroy the Historian's argument, so (D) is the correct answer.

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Julie-V on August 20, 2019

can you help explain the flaw with answer choice (e)? Thanks!

Lauren-Sapienza on September 18, 2019

Would love an explanation of E as well!

Skylar on September 20, 2019

@Julie-V @Lauren-Sapienza Since this is a Strengthen with Necessary Premise question, we can use the negation technique to determine which answer choices are required for the argument's conclusion. In this case, the conclusion is that today's generation of television viewers exercise their imaginations less frequently than the previous generation of radio listeners did. We know that this claim will fall apart when the correct answer choice is negated.

When negated, answer choice E reads "Television DOES require its viewers to think about what they see." While this answer may seem appealing at first, it is critical to realize that it does not destroy the argument. This is because the argument states that "today's generation of television viewers do so [exercised their imaginations] LESS FREQUENTLY." So, the argument conclusion accounts for some level of TV viewer thought, and the negated version of answer choice E does not specify how much it television viewers are required to think about what they see, just that they are to some extent. Therefore, a case in which TV viewers think about what they see but do so much less than radio listeners do is completely compatible with the argument conclusion and therefore incorrect.

Please let us know if you'd like any further clarification. Happy to help!

avif on May 19, 2020

Thanks Skylar. That really cleared it up for me!