Critical Reasoning

Parents and other citizens across the country frequently criticize schools for not doing their job. Most notably, they blame schools for low student achievement scores. Surprisingly, the most frequent and vociferous complaints come from those who live in districts where the achievement scores are high.
All of the following, considered individually, help to explain the apparent paradox EXCEPT:

A) Parents from districts of high achievers are very involved with the schools and are therefore more likely to make critical comments.

B) Parents and other citizens have no knowledge of their district's own scores.

C) High scores cause parents' expectations to rise, leading parents to demand that students achieve even more.

D) High-scoring districts contain low-achieving students whose parents are very likely to complain when they observe that their children's scores do not match those of children who live nearby.

E) Most complaints about schools come from political activists, most of whom live in high-achieving districts.


Somebody explain

mountainhillview wrote:Parents and other citizens across the country frequently criticize schools for not doing their job. Most notably, they blame schools for low student achievement scores. Surprisingly, the most frequent and vociferous complaints come from those who live in districts where the achievement scores are high.
All of the following, considered individually, help to explain the apparent paradox EXCEPT:

A) Parents from districts of high achievers are very involved with the schools and are therefore more likely to make critical comments.

B) Parents and other citizens have no knowledge of their district's own scores.

C) High scores cause parents' expectations to rise, leading parents to demand that students achieve even more.

D) High-scoring districts contain low-achieving students whose parents are very likely to complain when they observe that their children's scores do not match those of children who live nearby.

E) Most complaints about schools come from political activists, most of whom live in high-achieving districts.


Somebody explain

IMO B. This choice really does nothing to resolve the paradox..

IMO B

B

knowledge/ignorance of district's average score doesn't signify parents will complain...

"C" is the answer.

Because it only talks about parents demanding stuff from the students, not from the schools.

"B" clearly explains the paradox by simply saying the parents are ignorants.

Arsene Lupin wrote:"C" is the answer.

Because it only talks about parents demanding stuff from the students, not from the schools.

"B" clearly explains the paradox by simply saying the parents are ignorants.

Just because the parents are ignorant, I don't think they would argue. However, C resolves the paradox, because if the students don't achieve more, it is highly implied that they would complain.

Domnu wrote:

Arsene Lupin wrote:"C" is the answer.

Because it only talks about parents demanding stuff from the students, not from the schools.

"B" clearly explains the paradox by simply saying the parents are ignorants.

Just because the parents are ignorant, I don't think they would argue. However, C resolves the paradox, because if the students don't achieve more, it is highly implied that they would complain.

Wow how did that go through!

It is also the only one that doesn't talk about high achieving districts, which is a key phrase that I didn't pay much attention to.

I think its D

even if this is true that ' High-scoring districts contain low-achieving students whose parents are very likely to complain when they observe that their children's scores do not match those of children who live nearby.' this does not explain anything.

this sentence lacks the phrase ' High-scoring districts contain.... whose parents ... are more likely to complain than parents in other districts because simply saying that they are likely to complain does not resolve the fact that most complains come from high score districts...


I have also been thinking about E: What has political activism to do with that that parents are complaining? I think this does not resolve the paradox.. unless we assume ( which is not recommended in C/R) that political activists are more likely to express their point of view than others... but still after consideration maybe it is OK to make assumption about political activists here... so I removed this option.


I think B does resolve paradox, in that the paradox itself is that although the students of district have high scores still parents complain, this assumes that parent know the scores of their district i.e. know that the districts scores are superior and still complain. B says they don't know... if they knew they might not complain then....

I think answer is D.

Parents would have no reason to complain, if the rest of the kidds, attending the same district score well. Then, problem is in their own kidds, because the rest of the kidds are representative of the good quality of the education in the district.

mountainhillview wrote:Parents and other citizens across the country frequently criticize schools for not doing their job. Most notably, they blame schools for low student achievement scores. Surprisingly, the most frequent and vociferous complaints come from those who live in districts where the achievement scores are high.
All of the following, considered individually, help to explain the apparent paradox EXCEPT:

A) Parents from districts of high achievers are very involved with the schools and are therefore more likely to make critical comments.

B) Parents and other citizens have no knowledge of their district's own scores.

C) High scores cause parents' expectations to rise, leading parents to demand that students achieve even more.

D) High-scoring districts contain low-achieving students whose parents are very likely to complain when they observe that their children's scores do not match those of children who live nearby.

E) Most complaints about schools come from political activists, most of whom live in high-achieving districts.


Somebody explain

B
OA plz

B is the stated Answer


How can B be the answer. It clearly explains the paradox. It says the parents are ignorant, so blah blah..

confused if anyone could explain this one would be great...

Paradox: Surprisingly, the most frequent and vociferous complaints come from those who live in districts where the achievement scores are high.

B) Parents and other citizens have no knowledge of their district's own scores.

This doesn't explain the paradox because we do not know what causes complaints. (B) does not give us a reason why complaints are higher in high scoring districts. If parents knew their district had high scores, they may still complain, if they didn't know their district had high scores, they may still complain. Basically we don't know how they would react if they knew their district had high scores.

To explain the paradox we need to find out why complaints are higher in high scoring districts. All the other choices give a valid explanation.

I believe the answer should be B