PT23.S3.Q15

SECTION 1 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25

SECTION 2 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

SECTION 3 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24

SECTION 4 · rc

PASSAGE 1
Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5

PASSAGE 2
Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13

PASSAGE 3
Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18

PASSAGE 4
Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

PrepTest 23 - Section 3 - Question 15

Question

Explanation

Analytics

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Research indicates that Conclusion college professors generally were raised in economically advantaged households. ███ ██ ███ ██████████ █████ ████████ ███████ ██████████ ████ ██ ██ ███████████ ████ ███████ █████████ ███████ ████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ███████ █████████ ██████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █ ██████

Objective: Identify a Flaw

The author concludes that in general, college professors come from economically advantaged households. As support, we see statistical data showing that college professors typically come from communities with an average household income higher than the national average.

Simplifying the argument a bit, the core idea is that (in general) college professors come from economically advantaged communities, therefore they come from economically advantaged households. Suddenly, it's clearer that this is a whole-to-part confusion, a type of cookie-cutter flaw. The author is making the baseless assumption that because the whole community is economically advantaged, so is the particular household where a college professor grew up. This ignores the fact that an overall advantaged community can still contain average or low-income households.

Analysis by AlexandraNash

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15.

The reasoning in the argument ██ ██████ ███████ ███ ████████

inappropriately assumes a ███████████ ███████ █████████ ██████ ███ ████████ █████████

While the author does treat household income as indicative of economic advantage, it isn't inappropriate to do so. In fact, it's totally reasonable to treat high household income as a form of economic advantage. (A) doesn't address the true flaw of whole-to-part confusion.

fails to note █████ ███ ████ ███████████ ████ ████ ███████ █████████ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ████ ██

The existence of high-income communities that didn't produce college professors isn't relevant to the argument. The author is making a claim about the demographics of professors, not saying that economically-advantaged communities always produce professors.

presumes without justification ████ ███████ ██████████ █████████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████ ███████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███████ ███ █████ ███████████

In other words, the author makes an unwarranted assumption that a characteristic of the whole community is also a characteristic of the individual household. With only knowledge of the communities' overall income, we can't say that professors' individual households were affluent, because they could have just been low-income households in high-income communities.

does not take ████ ███████ ███ ████ ████ ███████ ██████████ █████████ ████ █████ ████████ ████ █████ ████████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████

The author's concern isn't with college professors' incomes as adults, but with the economic position of the households where they grew up. How much professors earn later in life isn't relevant.

fails to take ████ ███████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ███████ ██████████ ████ ██ █████ ████████████ █████ █████████ ████ ███ ███████ █████████ ███████

Like (D), this focuses on college professors' circumstances as adults, but the author is concerned with their situations growing up. Where professors live now has no bearing on where they grew up.

Difficulty

Question

70% of people who answer get this correct

This is a difficult question.

CURVE

Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right

25% 147

158

75% 170

Analysis

Question Stem Tags

Flaw or descriptive weakening

Stems that ask us to articulate a flaw in the stimulus' argument, either in abstract terms or by pointing out a weakness.

Stimulus Tags

Part v. whole

Stimuli that assume characteristics that apply to something as a whole must also apply to all its parts, or vice versa.

Answer Popularity

Popularity Avg. score

27%

164

157

70%

170

172

160

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