Internet Survey VI

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     In a recent telephone survey of over 6,000 Americans, the Pew Internet & American Life Project has concluded that African Americans' usage of internet technology lags behind that of whites. Survey respondents who identified as African Americans trailed whites by seven percentage points in use of the internet; 87% of whites and 80% of blacks are internet users. Moreover, 74% of white respondents had broadband internet access in their home, whereas 62% of black respondents had such access.
     Although the Pew survey appears to draw on a representative slice of Americans using careful survey methods, its results may suffer from having answered an inherently misleading question. The survey found, for example, that black and white internet usage and access is identical once other variables are controlled. Namely, 86% of African Americans respondents aged 18-29 were home broadband adopters, as were 88% of African Americans college graduates and 91% of blacks with an annual household income of $75,000 or more per year. These figures were not only well above the national average for broadband adoption, but, more to the point, they were identical to whites of similar ages, incomes, and education levels. It follows that internet adoption has nothing to do with race per se and everything to do with some or all of the factors age, educational attainment, and household income. If internet adoption correlates primarily with household income, as other studies of technology would suggest, then the survey in question does little more than lead us back to the fact that African Americans have a lower average household income than white Americans--a fact which has already been established. Nevertheless, the Pew study is a confirmation and a reminder of the fact that the current income difference between whites and blacks in America is having an impact on African Americans' access to technology and to the benefits that accrue from efficient access to the internet.                

The author would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements?

Review: Internet Survey VI


Explanation

In this question, as in all questions that sound like mind-reading questions, we are employing not psychology, but logic, and the correct answer will be the one that is most suggested or even required by the statements already made by the author of the passage. Since the question gives us no details to grab onto, we can begin by evaluating the answer choices relative to the point of the passage, which is that the survey, while good in many respects, has framed its results in a misleading way. If we survey the questions and we don't have strong immediate reactions, we can search for objective defects and start eliminating. (E) contradicts the fact that the author has used the data collected in the survey to construct her argument, so (E) is out. (D) overstates the author's criticism of the survey; she finishes the passage by partly defending the survey as a "confirmation and a reminder" of a known point. So (D) is out. Choice (C) is completely apart from the scope of the passage, as the author hasn't directly or indirectly talked about whether the findings are controversial and whether that would be a good thing. So (C) is out. We are left with (A) and (B). Which is objectively flawed? Or, alternatively, must one of them be true? (B) must be a belief of the author in order for her position to be consistent. She criticizes the study for having been summarized in a misleading way, and then partly defends the study as a "confirmation and reminder" of a well-established point. In saying that the authors should correct the way the study is framed and let it be a less interesting reminder of already established results, she is assuming and implying (B). Choice (A), meanwhile, describes a tougher decision, and we don't have the grounds to know where the author would stand on this issue. By citing the integrity of the data, and using the data in her argument, she implies that the accuracy of the data are important, and we don't have sufficient information to know whether she thinks the data or the framing are more important. If anything, she is likely to think the data are more important, oppositely to (A), since in the present case, with accurate data, the survey can be reinterpreted and repaired.

The correct answer is (B). Passage 19










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