Self-study
University administrator: Conclusion Graduate students incorrectly claim that teaching assistants should be considered university employees and thus entitled to the usual employee benefits. ████████ ████████ ██████████ █████ ████████ ███ █████ ████ ███████ █████████ █████████████ ████████ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ██████ ████████ ██████████ ███████ ████████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ██ ██████ ████ ██ ████ █████ ██████████ ██ ████ ████ ███ ████████ ███████ ████ ██ ██ ████ █████ █████████ ████ █████ ██████████ ████ █████ ███ ████ █████ ████████ █████ ██ ████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that teaching assistants should not be considered university employees. This is based on an intermediate conclusion that the sole purpose of having teaching assistants is to enable them to fund their education. The intermediate conclusion is based on the fact that if teaching assistants were not pursuing their degrees at university, or if they could otherwise already pay for their education, they wouldn’t have the teaching assistant jobs.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that TA’s inability to fund their education without having the TA position implies that the only purpose of the position is to help the TAs. (This overlooks that the university might have multiple purposes behind the TA position, one of which could be to use them as they would use employees.)
13.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ ███████████████ █████████
a
The administrator is █████████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ████████ ██ ████████ ████████ ████████ ██ ████████ ███████████
What the administrator is or is not aware of has no bearing on the administrator’s argument. You’d be making an ad hominem fallacy if you think that what she is personally aware of concerning costs should affect how we evaluate her argument.
b
The university employs ███████ ███████████ ███ ███████ ████████████ ███████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████████
The fact there are other employees who receive similar compensation doesn’t suggest that the purpose of having TAs isn’t what the administrator claims. The argument’s reasoning isn’t based on how much TAs are paid compared to others.
c
The university has ████████ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████████ ████ ████████ ███████████
This helps suggest that there’s more than one purpose to TAs. If the university is trying to replace faculty employees with TAs to save money, then at least part of the purpose of TAs is related to cost-savings. That means the “sole” purpose isn’t just to help the TAs.
d
Most teaching assistants ████ ████████ ████ ██████ █████ ████ ██ ████████
Funding education can require more than just paying tuition. So the fact TAs earn more than tuition is consistent with the claim that the purpose of having TAs is to allow them to fund their education.
e
Teaching assistants work ██ ████ ███ ██ ████ ██ ██ █████ ██████████ ██████████
The argument concerns the purpose of having TAs and whether that purpose justifies treating them as employees. How hard the TAs might work isn’t relevant to the relationship between the TA’s purpose and their status as employees.