Critical Reasoning

Political advocacy groups have begun to use information services to disseminate information that is then accessed by the public via personal computer. Since many groups are thus able to bypass traditional news sources, whose reporting is selective, and to present their political views directly to the public, information services present a more balanced picture of the complexities of political issues than any traditional news source presents.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument above depends?

A. Information services are accessible to enough people to ensure that political advocacy groups can use these services to reach as large a percentage of the public as they could through traditional news sources.
B. People could get a thorough understanding of a particular political issue by sorting through information provided by several traditional news sources, each with differing editorial biases.
C. Information on political issues disseminated through information services does not come almost entirely from advocacy groups that share a single bias.
D. Traditional news sources seldom report the views of political advocacy groups accurately.
E. Most people who get information on political issues from newspapers and other traditional news sources can readily identify the editorial biases of those sources.

I chose A . But A is wrong. Can anybody explain why A is wrong ? Thank you .

IMO C

The conclusion here is "information services present a more balanced picture of the complexities of political issues than any traditional news source presents"

What is the assumption here. That the political groups using information services will report their actual views and since all political groups will present their own views, the picture available to public is balanced.

I could not nail the answer directly, but I employed Elimination to eliminate other answers. See below.


A. Information services are accessible to enough people to ensure that political advocacy groups can use these services to reach as large a percentage of the public as they could through traditional news sources. - Irrelevant. The conclusion is never about the number of ppl it can reach, but it is about the balance of the political view itself. Hence wrong.
B. People could get a thorough understanding of a particular political issue by sorting through information provided by several traditional news sources, each with differing editorial biases. - If poeple can do this themselves, info services dont help.
C. Information on political issues disseminated through information services does not come almost entirely from advocacy groups that share a single bias. - The argument assumes something like this. that the filtered results will present a balanced picture and not a biased picture. BUt I was not convinced. So I went to D. - Correct.
D. Traditional news sources seldom report the views of political advocacy groups accurately. - Not an assumption according to me. This is what line "whose reporting is selective" says.
E. Most people who get information on political issues from newspapers and other traditional news sources can readily identify the editorial biases of those sources. - If people can identify, there is no need for Info services.

Hence I Stick with C. Is the answer correct though?

F1: Political grp have begun to use Info service to disseminate info to public via PC.
F2: Many goups are able to by pass the traditional news sources.
F3: Traditional news sources reporting is selective.

Conclusion: Information service provide more balanced picture than traditional news sources.

There is big gap between conclusion and facts.

In short, it says - B is selective and group by pass it, so A is more balanced than B.

As this is assumption question, I would go with POE.


I hope now you can figure it out what should be the answer.
IMO: C