Self-study
Support In a study in which secondary school students were asked to identify the teachers they liked the best, the teachers most often identified possessed a personality type that constitutes 20 percent of the general public but only 5 percent of teachers. ████ █████████ ████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████████ ████ ████████ ████ ███████████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that something is discouraging people who would be well-liked teachers from becoming teachers at all. This is based on a study where secondary students’ favorite teachers tended to have personality type X. However, only 5 percent of teachers are type X, compared to 20 percent of all people. In other words, teachers are much less likely to have personality type X.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that whatever is causing so few type X people to be teachers is happening before people take on teaching jobs, not afterwards. For example, people’s personality type may change after becoming a teacher, or type X people may quit teaching jobs more frequently.
18.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ █████████
a
People with the ███████████ ████ ██████████ █ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ███████████
This does not weaken the argument. The author’s hypothesis is limited to teachers, and there’s no apparent link that would make medicine analogous to teaching. And even if there were, we still don’t know why type-X people are only 5 percent of medical professionals.
b
People with the ███████████ ████ ██████████ █ ███████ ██ ███████ ████████ ████████ █ ██████ ██ ██████████
This does not weaken the argument. Aside from anything else, we don’t know the relationship between education degrees and teaching jobs. Maybe lots of people without education degrees pursue teaching jobs. So this statistic doesn’t tell us much about teaching applicants.
c
Students of teachers ████ ███ ███████████ ████ ███ █████████ █████████ ███ ██████████████ ████████████
This does not weaken the argument. What happens to students of type X teachers has nothing to do with whether type X people are being discouraged from taking teaching jobs.
d
Students with the ███████████ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ████ █████ ████ █████ ███████████ ██████
This does not weaken the argument. How teachers feel about their students is totally irrelevant to how we can explain the lower proportion of teachers with personality type X.
e
Teachers with the ███████████ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ████████ ████ █████ ████ █████ ███████████ ██████
This weakens the argument. If type X teachers are more likely to quit teaching, that shifts the problem to a later stage than the author identifies. The author assumes that type X people aren’t taking on teaching jobs, but this undermines that assumption.
Alternate explanation
Alternate explanation
Weaken: Introduce or support an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
Strengthen: Helps to eliminate an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.