PT112.S4.Q11

PrepTest 112 - Section 4 - Question 11

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Support High school students who feel that they are not succeeding in school often drop out before graduating and go to work. ████ █████ ████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ █████████████ █████ ████ ███ ████████ ██████ █████ ████ ██ ███████████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████████ ███ █████ ███ ██ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ██████ ████████ ███ █████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ █████████

Summary: Phenomenon-Hypothesis

The argument starts with a general statement: if high school students feel like they aren't succeeding in school, they often drop out. Then the argument comments on a specific phenomenon: last year, the city saw a significantly lower high school dropout rate than the year before. The author hypothesizes that what caused this change was a program created two years ago to improve high school students' morale.

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11.

Which one of the following, ██ ████ █████ ███ ████ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ █████████

a

There was a █████████ ████ ██████ █ ████ █████ ██ ████████████ ██ ███ █████
Correct. The stimulus told us that students who don't feel like they're succeeding in school will drop out and start working. But if there wasn't much work available last year because of the recession, students who would otherwise have chosen to drop out might have chosen to stay in school instead. (A) provides an alternative explanation for why the dropout rate was lower last year than the year before, so (A) successfully weakens the argument.
Alternate explanation
84%
b

The morale of ████████ ███ ███████ ███ ██ ████ ██████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ███████ ████ ███████
Incorrect. Knowing that (B) is true doesn't clarify anything about why the dropout rate was lower last year.
4%
c

As in the █████████ █████ ████ ████ ██████ ████████ ████████ ██ ██████ ████ ███████ ████
Incorrect. (C) doesn't provide an alternate explanation for why the dropout rate changed from one year to the next.
2%
d

High schools in ███ ████ ███████████ █████████ ███████ ██ ██████ █████ █████████ ██ █████████ ███████████
Incorrect. If you picked (D), maybe you thought that the prospect of having help from these placement offices encouraged more students to stay on through graduation. But this assumes that the students who would otherwise have dropped out felt that they were at least successful enough in school to graduate, and that it was worth their time to do so. We don't know that this is actually true for students who are thinking of dropping out. So (D) requires more of an assumption than (A) does.
Failed alternate explanation
8%
e

The antidropout program ███ █████████ █████ ██ █████████ █████████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ███████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████ ██████
Incorrect. Even if (E) is true, if the program successfully improved students' morale in these particular schools, that might have been enough to decrease the overall dropout rate. So (E) doesn't undermine the explanation provided in the stimulus, or suggest an alternative explanation.
1%

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