BREAKING: Target Test Prep releases Brand New 2026 On Demand GMAT prep course

Redeem

Teacher

This topic has expert replies
Post new topic Post Reply
Previous Topic Next Topic
User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 123
Joined: Tue May 31, 2011 12:26 am
Location: Hyderabad
Thanked: 5 times
Followed by:1 members

Teacher

by jainnikhil02 » Tue Jul 05, 2011 5:04 am
Parents of some of the children in a particular class have claimed that the teacher is
not objective and favors his male students with higher grades. But the record shown
that 92% of the female students received a passing grade in this teacher's class. This
record demonstrates that the teacher has not discriminated against women when
assigning grades.
The argument above is flawed in that it ignored the possibility that
A. a large number of the teacher's student were in his class the previous year.
B. many teachers find it difffucult to be objective when assigning grades to male and
female students.
C. the evidence shows that more than 92% of the female students should have
received a passing grade.
D. the majority of tests written by female students and that have been rechecked by
another teacher were given a higher grade by the second teacher.
E. the teacher is biased against female students in the case of only some of the
subjects he teachers.
Nikhil K Jain
____________________

"Life is all about timing" Don't waste your and others time.
Top
Source: — Critical Reasoning |
User avatar
Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2010 9:20 pm
Location: Mumbai, India

by abhijit_ghonge » Tue Jul 05, 2011 5:26 am
Parents of some of the children in a particular class have claimed that the teacher is
not objective and favors his male students with higher grades. But the record shown
that 92% of the female students received a passing grade in this teacher's class. This
record demonstrates that the teacher has not discriminated against women when
assigning grades.
The argument above is flawed in that it ignored the possibility that
A. a large number of the teacher's student were in his class the previous year.
B. many teachers find it difffucult to be objective when assigning grades to male and
female students.
C. the evidence shows that more than 92% of the female students should have
received a passing grade.
D. the majority of tests written by female students and that have been rechecked by
another teacher were given a higher grade by the second teacher.
E. the teacher is biased against female students in the case of only some of the
subjects he teachers.
My take is D because if the majority of the women test papers were rechecked then, the reasoning fall apart. That mean there was a bias, and thats why so many test papers were rechecked by other teacher.
Top
User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 1035
Joined: Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:13 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Thanked: 474 times
Followed by:365 members

by VivianKerr » Tue Jul 05, 2011 7:08 am
Conclusion: Teacher does not discriminate.

Evidence: 92% of females receive passing grade.

Assumption: Male percentage isn't markedly higher, the females aren't having to work harder to pass, "passing" doesn't show a wide gap between men/women

Question: What is a FLAW (use the assumptions)

Prediction: That "passing" could be a C-, whereas the males could be getting all A's (i.e. "passing" still allows for discrimination); that the 92% who passed should have passed anyway, so the teacher WAS discriminating even though % is high

IMO: C

We can fairly quickly narrow it down to C and D. So let's examine. What a second teacher would have given the tests is not relevant to the conclusion. We need something that is more closely tied to the argument itself, which focuses on the 92% passing rate for females as the BASIS for the claim of "no discrimination."

C is using that 92% passing rate as EVIDENCE for discrimination, and it identifies the main flaw here: that this 92% rate is not solid-proof that discrimination is not occurring.
Vivian Kerr
GMAT Rockstar, Tutor
https://www.GMATrockstar.com
https://www.yelp.com/biz/gmat-rockstar-los-angeles

Former Kaplan and Grockit instructor, freelance GMAT content creator, now offering affordable, effective, Skype-tutoring for the GMAT at $150/hr. Contact: [email protected]

Thank you for all the "thanks" and "follows"! :-)
Top
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2011 5:05 am
Thanked: 1 times

by mbacult » Tue Jul 05, 2011 7:20 am
vow .. that was close b/w C & D.

We can have a situation that even though 92% females passed, more could have passed..

Or that 92% is fine, but their grades should have been higher.

Now lowering the grades can have an effect of making higher grades less but still above pass marks, or taking it lower than passing ...

Is it because 'EVIDENCE' is mentioned that gives more weight to this option vs 'checking by another teacher' ?
Top
User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 123
Joined: Tue May 31, 2011 12:26 am
Location: Hyderabad
Thanked: 5 times
Followed by:1 members

by jainnikhil02 » Tue Jul 05, 2011 7:31 am
OA is C
Nikhil K Jain
____________________

"Life is all about timing" Don't waste your and others time.
Top
User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 2193
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:30 pm
Location: Vermont and Boston, MA
Thanked: 1186 times
Followed by:512 members
GMAT Score:770

by David@VeritasPrep » Tue Jul 05, 2011 11:27 am
D requires too many assumptions on our part.
"D. the majority of tests written by female students and that have been rechecked by another teacher were given a higher grade by the second teacher."
In order for this to be the correct answer we need to assume that the other teacher is unbiased. Choice C does not rely on this but it flatly states that "the evidence" shows the girls deserved a higher rate of passing.

Choice D also makes the assumption that the males scores would not also be raised by the other teacher, after all, if the other teacher raised all of scores then it is not that the original teacher is biased, just grades lower than teacher #2.

We also have the problem with D that D mentions the tests that "have been rechecked." So how many is that? Did they recheck most of the tests or about 10 of them?

So you see, do not read to charitably! Look at the answer choice for what it really says. Question your own assumptions and not only those of the test writers.
Veritas Prep | GMAT Instructor

Veritas Prep Reviews
Save $100 off any live Veritas Prep GMAT Course
Top

GMAT/MBA Expert

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 2623
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:17 am
Location: Montreal
Thanked: 1090 times
Followed by:355 members
GMAT Score:780

by Ian Stewart » Wed Jul 06, 2011 12:28 am
jainnikhil02 wrote:Parents of some of the children in a particular class have claimed that the teacher is
not objective and favors his male students with higher grades. But the record shown
that 92% of the female students received a passing grade in this teacher's class. This
record demonstrates that the teacher has not discriminated against women when
assigning grades.
The argument above is flawed in that it ignored the possibility that
A. a large number of the teacher's student were in his class the previous year.
B. many teachers find it difffucult to be objective when assigning grades to male and
female students.
C. the evidence shows that more than 92% of the female students should have
received a passing grade.
D. the majority of tests written by female students and that have been rechecked by
another teacher were given a higher grade by the second teacher.
E. the teacher is biased against female students in the case of only some of the
subjects he teachers.
While I agree with the expert assessments above, I don't care for the question. What is the source? The fact that "the evidence shows that more than 92% of the female students" should have passed *does* give reason to believe the female students were graded too harshly. But that alone is no evidence of "discrimination" against female students, because we have no information about how the male students were graded. If male students were graded equally (or even more) harshly, there is no discrimination.

The conclusion of the argument is not that the teacher graded female students harshly; the conclusion is that the teacher has not "discriminated against women" in grading. The question asks us to find why the argument "is flawed". The argument in the stem is deeply flawed for many reasons, but its most serious flaw is that it never compares female students with male students. None of the answer choices convey that point.
For online GMAT math tutoring, or to buy my higher-level Quant books and problem sets, contact me at ianstewartgmat at gmail.com

ianstewartgmat.com
Top
Post new topic Post Reply
• Page 1 of 1