Self-study
Superintendent: Support Within the school district overall, 11 percent of high school students drop out. ████████ ██ ███ ████ ██████ ████████ ███ ███████████ ██ ████ ████████████ ████ █ ███████ ████ ████ ████████ █████ █████████████ ██ █ ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ██████ ████ █ ███████ ████ ████ ████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that participation in a work internship decreases a student’s chances of dropping out. This is based on the fact that within a certain school district, there’s a correlation between participation in a work internship and decreased chance of dropping out.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The author assumes the correlation between participation in work internships and decreased dropout rate is due to the participation causing decreased dropout rates. This overlooks the possibility that the correlation could be due to something else. Perhaps both the decreased chance of dropping out and participation in work interships are due to another cause (the student’s personality, for example).
14.
The reasoning in the superintendent's ████████ ██ ██████ ███████ ███ ████████
a
uses evidence that ██ ██ █████████ ██████████ ██ ████████
The evidence is not impossible to disprove. There’s no reason statistics about dropout rates can’t be proven.
b
uses the key ████ █████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █ ███████ ███ ██ ███████ █████ ██ ███ ██████████
The word “student” means the same thing in both the premises and conclusion.
c
generalizes from a ██████ ████████ ██ █ ███████ ████ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████ ████
The evidence is not a “single instance.” It is based on statistics concerning at least multiple students and dropouts in the school district. Also, the conclusion does not assert something about every work internship or every dropout.
d
infers a specific ██████ ████████████ ████ █ ███████████ ████ █████ ████ ████ ██████ ████ ███████ █████
The author infers a causal relationship between work internships and decreased dropout rate, even though the correlation between the two things could have been due to something else.
e
contains a premise ████ ███████████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ██████████
(E) describes circular reasoning. The conclusion — which asserts that work internships decrease chances of dropping out — is not restated in the premises. The premises present only a correlation between work internships and lower dropout rate.