Question

researchers studied what content on the new york times homepage is most widely shared and found that viral content tends to have certain common qualities. while content may be shared for many reasons, content that calls forth strong emotions tends to be more widely shared. in addition, stories inspiring positive emotions, such as awe, tend to be more widely shared than those inducing negative feelings, such as anxiety. however, its worth noting that
which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the text?
choose 1 answer
a sad reactions to online content dont have an impact on how widely shared that content is
b anxiety - inducing online content is more likely to go viral than anger - inducing content
c content that induces anger and content that induces awe are shared at similar rates,
d sadness - inducing online content is about half as likely to go viral as anxiety - inducing content

Explanation:

To solve this, we analyze each option:

• Option A: The text doesn’t support that sad reactions have no impact—this is unfounded.
• Option B: The passage says positive - emotion (like awe) stories are more shared than negative (like anxiety). So anxiety - inducing content being more viral than anger - inducing goes against this, and we can assume (from typical data in such studies) anger - inducing might be more or similar, but this option is incorrect.
• Option C: If we assume the table shows that anger - inducing and awe - inducing content have similar sharing rates, this matches the idea that positive (awe) and a negative (anger) emotion - inducing content can be shared at similar levels, which is a plausible completion.
• Option D: The passage and typical logic don’t support sadness - inducing being half as likely as anxiety - inducing—no basis for this ratio.

Answer:

C. content that induces anger and content that induces awe are shared at similar rates.