Self-study
Support The dean of computing must be respected by the academic staff and be competent to oversee the use of computers on campus. ███ ████ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ █████ ███ ████ ████████ ████████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ██████ █████ █████ █████████ ███ ███████████ ███████ ███ ███ ██ █████████ ██ ███████ ████████████ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ████████ ████ █████ ████ ██████████████ ██████ ██████████ ███ ████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ █ █████████ ████ ████ ██████████████ ████████ ███████ ███████████
The Fast Way
Many necessary assumption questions, this one included, are open to a pretty simple strategy: isolate a concept that appears in the conclusion and nowhere else, then anticipate that the assumption is something like “[the concepts in the premises] are related to [the concept in the conclusion].”
Here’s the argument distilled through that lens:
Premises: [To be the dean of computing, there are like 1000 requirements. None of those mention being a professor in the CS department, though.]
________
Conclusion: The dean of computing must be a professor from the CS department.
And now the anticipation:
The only people who can fulfill [these various requirements] are professors from the CS department.
This strategy isn’t foolproof – there are often tons of other ways to poke holes in the argument, any of which would qualify as a right answer if the testwriters wanted to be tricky. Quite often, though, you can save a lot of time by hunting for an answer choice that fits your anticipation, finding it, and moving on without agonizing too much about the other options.
All Five Requirements
As mentioned above, the stimulus’ premises just establish a million requirements to be the dean of computing. Let’s explicate them:
The dean of computing needs to berespected (which requires adoctoral degree ), andcompetent (which requiresknowledge of computers ), andpart of the university’s staff .
That’s 5 requirements. Fail to meet any of these standards and you’re disqualified from being the dean of computing.
13.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ ████████
a
Academics respect only ██████ ███ ████ ████████ ████████
(A) just restates
b
All of this ██████████████ ██████████ ████ ████████ ████████ ████████
Broadly speaking, this answer confuses necessity for sufficiency – it would be much more relevant if the conclusion were that any professor from the CS department would make a good dean of computing.
We don’t need all professors at the university to have doctorates. We for sure need some of them to have doctorates (or else no CS professor could qualify to be dean of computing), but it’s okay if there are a few professors at the university who don’t have doctorates, and who therefore don’t qualify to be dean of computing.
c
At this university, █████ █████████ ███ █████ █ ████████ ██████ ██ ████████ ███████ ██████ █████ █████ ██████████
(C) just takes two of the stimulus’ requirements for being dean of computing and smushes them together. The premises do establish a few “all” relationships (all respected deans have doctoral degrees; all competent people know computers), but aside from those established relationships, the argument just needs a single candidate to fulfill the various requirements. In other words, it’s okay if there are some CS professors who wouldn’t make a good dean of computing.
d
All academics who ████ ████████ ███████ ███ █████████ ██ █████ ████████ ███████████
(D) just takes
e
Among this university’s █████ ███████ ████ ████████ ████████ ████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████ ██████████ ██████ ████ █████ ██████████
This fits the general mold we anticipated in the analysis section: only CS professors [can meet the various requirements].
Here’s (E) negated: among this university’s staff members with doctoral degrees, there are some people outside the computer science department who really know about computers.
The argument’s conclusion is that only CS department professors could possibly meet all the requirements to become dean. With (E) negated, there’s an active possibility that these people – who aren’t in the CS department but are staff members with doctoral degrees and knowledge of computers – might actually qualify.