Self-paced
Educators studied the performance of 200 students in a university's history classes. ████ █████ ████ █████ ████████ ███ █████████ ███ ████ ███ ██████ █████████ ████ ██ █████████ █████ ███ █████ ███████ ███████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ███ ███ █ ████ ███████ ██████ █████ ███████ █████ ████████ ███ █████████ ███ █████ ███ ██ █████ ███ █████ ███████ ███████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ███ ███ █ ████ ██████ ██████ █████
"Surprising" Phenomenon
In a history class, students with jobs and minimal social lives outperformed students with no jobs and active social lives.
Objective
The correct answer will be a hypothesis that explains why students with jobs but no social lives performed so much better than those with social lives but no jobs. Presumably both groups were sacrificing study time to respectively work or party. Our answer should explain why an active social life is more detrimental to studies than is employment.
1.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ █████████
a
The students compensated ███ ███ █████ ████ ████ ███ ██ █████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ███ ██████████ ███ ███ █████ ████ ████ ███ ██ █████ ██████ ██████
Students who party and don't work sleep in on Saturdays and skip studying. Students who work and don't party still make the time to study, hence why they outperform their more socially-active peers. This tells us why social activites are more detrimental.
b
The students who ███ █████████ ████ █████████ ██████ ██████████ █████ ██ █████ █████
Working late-night hours wouldn’t improve these students’ grades. We also don't know if their socially-active peers were out late, too. This doesn't explain a relevant difference between the groups.
c
Better students tend ██ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ █████████ ██ ████ █████ ██ ███ ████████
According to the stimulus, both groups of students—the very best and the very worst—attend classes in the morning. We need something that distinguishes hard-working and hard-partying students, and this doesn't.
d
A larger percentage ██ █████ ████████ ██████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ███ █████████ █████
This only compares between employed students. The correct answer needs to explain the difference between employed students and socially-active students.
e
Although having a ███ █████ ██ ███████ █ ███████ ████ ███████ ████ ██████████ ████████ ████████████ ██████ █ █████████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████ █████ ███ ████████ █ ███████ ████ █████████
So it's possible that having a job has both pros and cons, and it's possible that a social life has academic downsides. None of this is concrete enough to tell us why there was such a difference in the study.