- Tue Jan 07, 2025 10:54 pm
#111358
Hi AleSimon,
This is a Resolve the Paradox-EXCEPT question.
The first step in solving this question type is identifying the apparent paradox or odd facts in the stimulus and understanding why they seem odd at first glance.
Here, the two facts given are:
1. The average literate person today spends far less time reading than the average literate person 50 years ago.
2. Many more books are sold per year now than 50 years ago.
These two facts seem odd because if the average literate person today spends far less time reading than the average literate person 50 years ago, one would expect fewer book sales today rather than more.
In a normal Resolve the Paradox question, you'd be looking for the one answer that helps explain or shed light on this situation. However, because this is an EXCEPT question, four of the answers will help resolve the paradox and the correct answer will not help to resolve it.
Answer E states that books now are shorter and easier to read than 50 years ago. This does help explain the paradox because this indicates that the older books (being longer and more complicated) took much longer to read than today's books. For example, 50 years ago someone might spend a month reading "War and Peace" while today someone could read several shorter books in much less time than that one huge book.
Answer D doesn't resolve the paradox. In fact, this would be an opposite answer. If Answer D had stated that people today were more likely than people 50 years ago to buy books to display large collections, that would help explain why more books are being sold now than 50 years even though people are reading less. That would suggest that people are buying the books not to read, but just to collect and display in their libraries.
The problem though, is that this answer is backwards. This answer says that people 50 years ago were more likely to buy books to display large collections than people today. This doesn't explain why more books are being sold now. In fact, it actually would make the facts in the stimulus more of a paradox rather than less. Because Answer D does not help resolve the paradox, it is the correct answer to this EXCEPT question.
