Evaluation--Computer-based

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Evaluation--Computer-based

by amysky_0205 » Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:42 am
The growing popularity of computer-based activities was widely expected to result in a decline in television viewing, since it had been assumed that people lack sufficient free time to maintain current television-viewing levels while spending increasing amounts of free time on the computer. That assumption, however, is evidently false: in a recent mail survey concerning media use, a very large majority of respondents who report increasing time spent per week using computers report no change in time spent watching television.

In order to evaluate the argument, it would be most useful to determine which of the following?

A. Whether the survey collected information about the amount of money respondents spent on free-time media use
B. Whether the amount of time spent watching television is declining among people who report that they rarely or never use computers
C. Whether the type of television programs a person watches tends to change as the amount of time spent per week using computers increases
D. Whether a large majority of the computer owners in the survey reported spending increasing amounts of time per week using computers
E. Whether the survey respondents' reports of time spent using computers included time spent using computers at work

OA: E

can someone explain why B is wrong?
can't figure out why E is better...
thank u!
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by shenoydevika » Thu Jan 24, 2013 6:04 am
Hello amysky!

This is how I came to the answer.

Here is what I understood from the question
People expected that since computer-use was becoming popular, tv viewing would decline because people just don't have enough time to continue to watch as much tv while increasing their use of computers in their free time. (See? they are talking about people using computers in their FREE time here)
But this assumption proved to be false. How? A survey was conducted. Survey findings were - people who increased computer usage per week did not spend less time watching tv.

Do you see the flaw now? The survey results were based on people's computer usage per week. Not people's computer usage in their free time. They could be using computers only at their work place right? Or at college?

Why is Option B incorrect? It brings in additional info about people who rarely use computers. That does not concern us. We are only interested in the tv viewing habits of people who are increasing their computer usage.

E helps clarify the survey findings. Knowing whether the survey findings accounted for computer usage at work will help us evaluate the argument.

I hope this helps.