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education department

by YellowSapphire » Tue Aug 10, 2010 9:07 am
Parent: The city education department is unable to distinguish between annoyances and important problems. For instance, prohibiting students from having cell phones is an overreaction. If a student uses one and thus interferes with instruction, confiscate it. All in all, we need educational leadership that can solve problems, not create them.

Which of the following is an assumption made by the parent?

A: Students having cell phones does not constitute an important problem for the city schools.
B: Students have no need for cell phones in school.
C: Faculty and staff should be allowed to possess cell phones.
D: Students need to have cell phones because some of them have no stay-at-home parent.
E: An interest in solving problems is the most important attribute of an educational leader.
Yellow Sapphire
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by beatthegmatinsept » Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:11 am
Parent: The city education department is unable to distinguish between annoyances and important problems. For instance, prohibiting students from having cell phones is an overreaction. If a student uses one and thus interferes with instruction, confiscate it. All in all, we need educational leadership that can solve problems, not create them.

Which of the following is an assumption made by the parent?

A: Students having cell phones does not constitute an important problem for the city schools. My answer. The first sentence kinda gives this one away.
B: Students have no need for cell phones in school. Contradicts the conclusion
C: Faculty and staff should be allowed to possess cell phones. Parent does not really talk about Faculty and Staff here at all
D: Students need to have cell phones because some of them have no stay-at-home parent. This makes sense, and I thought of choosing this as the answer choice, but B seems like a safer assumption.
E: An interest in solving problems is the most important attribute of an educational leader. They dont talka bout attributes of an educational leader at all here.
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by reply2spg » Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:27 am
IMO A
YellowSapphire wrote:Parent: The city education department is unable to distinguish between annoyances and important problems. For instance, prohibiting students from having cell phones is an overreaction. If a student uses one and thus interferes with instruction, confiscate it. All in all, we need educational leadership that can solve problems, not create them.

Which of the following is an assumption made by the parent?

A: Students having cell phones does not constitute an important problem for the city schools.
B: Students have no need for cell phones in school.
C: Faculty and staff should be allowed to possess cell phones.
D: Students need to have cell phones because some of them have no stay-at-home parent.
E: An interest in solving problems is the most important attribute of an educational leader.
Sudhanshu
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by Frankie@VeritasPrep » Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:43 am
Thanks for posting the problem YellowSapphire. I agree with beatthegmatinsept - (A) is an assumption made by the parent. This problem would be in the "strengthen" category of CR questions - your job is to strengthen what the author or speaker concludes. In logic, an assumption is something that is necessary for the parent's reasoning to be true but is left unstated. By giving voice to that assumption you consequently strengthen the parent's position.

Assumption-based questions (Which is an assumption/presupposition of the argument above, The logic above assumes which of the following, The reasoning above depends on which of the following) are a unique type of strengthen question and therefore lend themselves to a unique, and very useful, strategy. Veritas details this approach, the Assumption Negation Technique, in the CR II book (now available for individual sale on Amazon!).

If it sounds a bit intense don't worry - the process is actually pretty straightforward. If you negate, or take the opposite of, the correct answer choice, that negated form will seriously undermine the author's original conclusion. Which makes sense because, if an assumption is required for the argument, then the opposite of that assumption should critically undermine the conclusion. This is a good self-check tool and it can help in making a final determination between two remaining answer choices. On these assumption-based questions more than one answer choice may help or strengthen the author's point but only one will truly be required or assumed.

Using the problem YellowSapphire posted:

(A) negated would read: Students having cell phones constitutes an important problem for the city schools. This negated statement is in direct opposition to what the parent argues and (A) is therefore the answer.

Now let's look at (D). It seems like it could help justify the parent's point but negating can help us decide if it is actually required. (D) negated would read: Some students do not need to have cell phones because some of them have a stay-at-home parent. The negated form is a bit off-base from the parent's exact conclusion and only eliminates a possible explanation for why not all students would need cell phones - it doesn't totally undermine the parent's point that cell phones are not an important problem. Therefore (D) is not required or assumed by the original argument.

Negating answers can be incredibly useful but remember it only applies to assumption-based problems!
Frankie Beecroft
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Veritas Prep

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