Self-study
Support Polls have shown that a higher percentage of graduating university students are against proposals to reduce government social services than are students entering their first year at a university. █████ █████ ████ ██ ██ ███ ██████████ ████ ██████ ████ █ ██████████ █████████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ ██████████ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ██████████ ██████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ███████████
Summarize Argument
The author cites polls showing that graduating university students are more opposed to proposals to reduce social services than incoming students are. Based on these polls, she concludes that people with a university education are more likely to be in favor of retaining or increasing social services than the overall population.
Notable Assumptions
The author makes two big assumptions to get to her conclusion. First, she assumes that graduating university students are representative of the overall group of people with a university education. Second, she also assumes that students going into university are representative of the overall population. Neither of these assumptions has to be true, and a good way to weaken this argument would be to show that one of them isn't valid.
11.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ █████████
a
The polls of ██████████ ██████████ ████████ ████ ████████ ██ █████ ████████████████ ███ ██████ ████████ ███████████
This doesn't weaken the author's argument — if anything, it adds some support. By eliminating one possible way the polls could have been biased, this makes the polls seem more representative of people graduating university generally, regardless of their discipline.
b
The political views ██ ██████ ████ █ ██████████ █████████ ███ ██ █ █████ ██████ ██████████ ██ █████ ███████████ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ███ ███████ ███████ ████████ ██████████ ██████ █████████
This strengthens the author’s argument. By explaining that people with a university education tend to have been influenced by their professors, who are opposed to reducing government social services, this answer choice just offers an explanation for why the author's conclusion might be true. Note that this answer choice even bridges one of the assumptions in the author's argument, by giving us a reason to think that people with a university education generally, not just graduating students, will be opposed to reducing social services.
c
Polls of retired ███████ ███ ████ ███ █████████ ████ █ ██████████ ████ █ ██████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ██████████ ██████ ████████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ███████ ███ ████ █████████ ████ █ ███████████
This answer choice is tricky, because we have to infer from the fact that more retired people without a university education want to reduce social services that fewer of them want to keep social services, compared to retired people with a university education. In other words, retired people with a university education are more likely to favor keeping social services than retired people without a university education.
This actually strengthens the author’s argument. By focusing on people later in life, rather than only graduating or incoming university students, this adds support to the claim that people with a university education, in general, are more likely to favor keeping or increasing social services than people without a university education.
d
Polls of those ███ █████████ ████ █ ██████████ ████ ████ ████ █████ ██████ █████ ██████ ████ █ ██████ ██████████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ██████████ ██████ ████████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ███████ ███████████
This weakens the argument. It tells us that while graduating students are disproportionately against reducing social services, people polled five years of graduation are disproportionately in favor of reducing social services. It seems like people's views on social services might change after they graduate from college. Thus, it isn't necessarily true that all people with a university education will be more likely than average to be in favor of retaining or increasing social services.
e
In the polls ██████ ██████████ ██████████ ████████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██████ ████████ █████ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ ██████████ ██████ ████████ ████ ████ ████████ ████████ █ ███████████
Irrelevant. We're not interested in the strength of people's opinions on this topic, just whether they favor reducing social services or not, and the effect of a university education on their views. Notice that we can't assume that people with stronger opinions are more likely to answer polls on this topic, and so the polls are biased. This answer choice just tells us about the opinions of people who had been selected for the poll, but doesn't tell us anything about how they were selected for inclusion. It could have been a random selection, and this answer choice could still be true.