Self-study
The director of a secondary school where many students were having severe academic problems impaneled a committee to study the matter. ███ █████████ ████████ ████ █████ ████████ ████ ██████ ████████ ████████ ███████ ████ █████ █████ ███████ ██ ████ ██ ██████ ██████ ███ ███ ██████ ████ █████████ ███ ████████ ████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ███ ████ ██████ ████████ ████████ ████ ██████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ████ ███████ ██ ██████ ████ ████ █████ ██████ ████ ████ ████████ █████ ██ ████ █████████████
Argument Structure
The stimulus describes how the director of a secondary school appointed a committee to investigate why many students were struggling academically. The committee reported that the students' difficulties came from spending large amounts of time on sports and not enough time on studying.
The director responded to these findings by banning all students struggling academically from participating in any of the sports they played. He argued that this measure would ensure students would do well academically.
Notable Assumptions
There are a few assumptions in the director's argument, not least that the committee is correct in its findings. Notice also that the director assumes that spending a large amount of time on sports is itself the primary cause of why students aren't spending enough time studying, and therefore why they are struggling academically. This assumption underlies the principal's reasoning that forbidding participation in sports alone will guarantee that students spend more time studying.
But if spending a lot of time on sports is itself a symptom of some other cause — boring homework assignments, say, that don't engage the students — then it seems just as likely that banning sports will just push the students to spend more time on something else, and not on studying.
8.
The reasoning on which the ████████ █████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ █████ ███████ ██ █████ ██ █████████ ████
a
some students who █████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ████████
This isn't relevant to the argument. The director bans sports for students who have academic problems, not for students who do not.
b
all students who ██ ████ ████████████ ██ ██ ███████ ██ ████ █████ ██ ███ █████████████ ██ ██████
Incorrect. This claim (do well → /sports) isn't relevant to the director's argument. Rather, he erroneously claims that not participating in sports will alone guarantee students do well (/sports → do well), which is itself based on the erroneous causal assumption that not spending time on sports will lead to more time spent studying.
c
at least some ██ ███ ████ ███ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ███ █████████████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ █████ ████████ ████████
This is correct. The committee's findings were not solely that students were spending a large amount of time on sports, but also that they were spending too little time on studying. Even if students are banned from sports, if they spend the same amount of time on other things than studying, the problem won't be solved. The director never establishes that this won't happen.
d
no students who ██ ████ ████████████ █████ ████ ██ ██████
Incorrect. The director is not trying to make the case that not participating in sports is a necessary condition for all students who do well: do well → /sports. Instead, he is trying to argue that not participating in sports will be sufficient to ensure doing well for those students who are currently struggling: /sports → do well.
e
the quality of ███ ██████████ ██████ ███████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ █ ██████ ██ ███ ███
Incorrect. The quality of the school's sports program is never mentioned, and we don't know that the director even cares about it.