People's Television-Viewing Habits could be Monitored by having Television Sets.

Question: People's television-viewing habits could be monitored by having television sets, when on, send out low-level electromagnetic waves that are reflected back to the sets. The reflected waves could then be analysed to determine how many persons are within the viewing area of the sets. Critics fear adverse health effects of such a monitoring system, but a proponent responds, “The average dose of radiation is less than one chest x-ray. As they watch, viewers won’t feel a thing.”

Which of the following issues would it be most important to resolve in evaluating the dispute concerning the health effects of the proposed system?

1. Whether the proposed method of monitoring viewership can distinguish between people and pets.
2. Weather radar speed monitors also operate on the principle of analyzing reflected waves of electromagnetic radiation.
3. Whether the proposed system has been tried out in various areas of the country or in a single area only.
4. What uses are foreseen for the viewership data.
5. Whether the average dose that the proponent describes is a short-term dose or a lifetime cumulative dose.

Answer: E
Explanation: This is a GMAT critical reasoning question. We have to find the option that would be most important to solve in evaluating the dispute concerning the health effects of the system proposed.

Let’s go through each of the options and select the most suitable one.

Option A: Whether the proposed method of monitoring viewership can distinguish between people and pets.
Option A states that the issue should be if the proposed method of monitoring viewership can differentiate between people and pets. This statement can be relevant to large issues, like would this system measure things correctly or not. But it is not relevant to the health effects of the proposed system. It does not tell us if this system will accurately measure the health effects or not. Since the statement is not relevant to the argument presented, Option A is incorrect.

Option B: Weather radar speed monitors also operate on the principle of analyzing reflected waves of electromagnetic radiation.
Option B states that the issue should be whether radar speed monitors also operate on the principle to analyze the reflected waves of the electromagnetic radiation. This statement is not particularly helpful because the radar detectors hit cars and it blocks most of the radiation from hitting the human body of the driver or the passenger, whereas the proposed system will directly hit the radiation on the people siting in front of it. So, Option B is incorrect.

Option C: Whether the proposed system has been tried out in various areas of the country or in a single area only.
Option C states that the issue should be whether the system has been tried out in different areas of the country or in one area only. Even if we had this information, this won’t be of any particular use to support the argument. Since this statement is not relevant to the argument, Option C is incorrect.

Option D: What uses are foreseen for the viewership data.
Option D states that the issue should be what uses are foreseen for the viewership data. This statement does not talks about the health effects of the proposed system, rather it talks about what issues are foreseen for the viewership data. So, Option D is incorrect.

Option E: Whether the average dose that the proponent describes is a short-term dose or a lifetime cumulative dose.
Option E states that the issue should be whether the average dose that proponent specifies is a short-term or lifetime cumulative dose. This is related to the health effects. If the average dose is short-term, that would be bad enough but if the dose is a lifetime cumulative dose, it would be absolutely horrific for the TV viewers. So, this statement highly relates to the health effects. Option E is correct.

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