Lesson 4 HW, Passage #9, Q6

[vas]

Hello,

In answering this question, I narrowed the answer choices to B and C.

I saw that Answer B weakened the author's argument that "conferences discriminate along educational and economic lines because participation requires a basic knowledge of computers and the ability to afford access to conferences" (lines 44-47).

However, to me, I also saw that Answer C potentially weakened the author's assertions that "it might be easier to find common ground in a computer conference than in today's communities" (lines 59-61) and "it would be unfortunate if conference participants cut themselves off further from valuable interactions in their own towns or neighborhoods" (lines 62-64).

Can you provide clarification between the two answer choices?

Thank you in advance for your help!

[David Boyle]

Hello,

In answering this question, I narrowed the answer choices to B and C.

I saw that Answer B weakened the author's argument that "conferences discriminate along educational and economic lines because participation requires a basic knowledge of computers and the ability to afford access to conferences" (lines 44-47).

However, to me, I also saw that Answer C potentially weakened the author's assertions that "it might be easier to find common ground in a computer conference than in today's communities" (lines 59-61) and "it would be unfortunate if conference participants cut themselves off further from valuable interactions in their own towns or neighborhoods" (lines 62-64).

Can you provide clarification between the two answer choices?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Hello vas,

Answer C may seem helpful offhand, but even if folks give the same respect and support to interactions in actual communities, that doesn't mean they're *having* any, or many, such interactions.
Let's say Joe Blow is respectful to actual communities as he is to a computer community. However, because he's on the computer all the time, he only has 1/10 as many interactions in his actual community as he would if he weren't busy with computer communities. So, even though his few interactions in the "real world" are polite--he doesn't have many real-life interactions!

Hope this helps,
David

[vas]

Thank you for the clarification, David!