Magazine Publisher: Our magazine does not have a liberal bias. It is true that when a book review we had commissioned last year turned out to express distinctly conservative views, we did not publish it until we had also obtained a second review that took a strongly liberal position. Clearly, however, our actions demonstrate not a bias in favor of liberal views but rather a commitment to a balanced presentation of diverse opinions.

Determining which of the following would be most useful in evaluating the cogency of the magazine publisher’s response?

Whether any other magazines in which the book was reviewed carried more than one review of the book Whether the magazine publishes unsolicited book reviews as well as those that it has commissioned Whether in the event that a first review commissioned by the magazine takes a clearly liberal position the magazine would make any efforts to obtain further reviews Whether the book that was the subject of the two reviews was itself written from a clearly conservative or a clearly liberal point of view Whether most of the readers of the magazine regularly read the book reviews that the magazine publishes

答案为C

这是EVALUATE题。对答案的两种回答能WEAKEN和SUPPORT原文结论。

如果对C回答是，则支持结论。

对C回答否，则削弱结论。

为什么不是A呢？

A如果回答是，就是说每本书出版前都要重新审核一遍，显然只是例行审核，并没有支持民主的观点，所以支持结论。

如果A回答否，那有保守观点的书需要多审核一遍，那不就是说明偏向民主的观点么？

进死胡同了，麻烦把我拉出来。

我的理解： 杂志出版者说他们没有自由主义偏见。举了例子来支持：去年他们被委托(而出)的某书评清楚了表现了保守观点，而当时他们是在取得另一个自由观点的书评后，才决定出那个有保守观点的。即说他们在两种观点中选了保守的，所以他们没有自由主义偏见，而是平衡公正地传达各种多元不同的声音。 C，当该杂志先取得自由观点的书评时，是否还会用心去取得其它书评。>>言下之意，如果他们先取得自由观点的书评，就不管其它观点的看法立即出版了，那么他们就是in favor of 自由主义而不公正的。 如果用简单2分法，美国自由主义，民主党，左派指的是一边；保守主义，共和党，右派是另一边。