Self-study
Support A student has taken twelve courses and received a B in a majority of them. ███ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ███████ ██████ ███ ████ █████████ █████ ███ ███████ ███████ █ █ ██ ███
Summarize Argument
The author argues that the student in question will likely get a B in her upcoming course. This is because she has received a B in most of the twelve other courses she’s taken.
Notable Assumptions
The author argues that the student receiving a B in most of her courses makes it likely she’ll receive a B in this course. That means that the author doesn’t believe the student's study habits have improved or gotten worse, and that this course doesn’t differ from the majority of her courses in any meaningful way.
1.
Each of the following, if █████ ███████████ ███ ████████ ███████
a
The student previously ███████ █████ ███ ██ █████████ ████ ████ ███████ ███████████ ████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ███████
Since the student is changing her study strategy, that rebuts the author's assumption that she hasn't changed her study habits. That undermines the conclusion, and certainly doesn't strengthen.
b
The twelve courses ████████ ███████ █ █████ █████ ██ ███████ ███████
This supports the argument by supporting the author's assumption that this course isn't meaningfully different from the other twelve, because it's unlikely to be covering a new subject area.
c
The student previously ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ███ █████████ ██ ██ ███
The student hasn’t changed this one aspect of her study habits. This strengthens the argument by supporting the author's assumption that her study habits have stayed the same.
d
The student received █ █ ██ ███ ███ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ████████
This intensifies “majority” to “vast majority,” which means an even stronger level of support for the author's prediction.
e
The current course ██ █ ████████████ ██ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ████████ █ ██
This strongly affirms the assumption that this course is comparable to the student's past courses—after all, it's a continuation of one of them! This affirmation strengthens the argument.