I got the correct answer (B) but for those that chose (E) my reasoning for ruling that one out was just remembering that there are always outliers. Remember in the previous lesson where the graphs were shown as a visual for the relationship between A and B -- that is what I remembered to rule out E. Just because there are outliers does not negate the fact that a correlation still exists between two phenomenon. Hope this helps someone!
Look at the keywords answer choices e and b are using. E gives us information that is technically true, but it's not relevant! The keyword "some" in e could be any variation from 1 to all. But the keyword "most" in answer choice b significantly weakens the argument by implying that the majority of success isn't coming from the contents of the program, but from the prior educational experience of the parents!
@jordonkeener04593 E doesn’t weaken the argument because the fact that some children who didn’t participate performed exceptionally well doesn’t tell us whether participation caused the participating children to perform better. Those nonparticipants could simply be unusually strong students, and the argument never claims that children need the program in order to do well. So E doesn’t give us a reason to doubt that the program caused the better average performance. Students could do well outside the program, but maybe they are doing even better in the programs. Just because students did well outside the program, doesn't mean the quantity of students outside of the program is more than the quantity in the program. It simply does not tell enough, B on the other hand is a lot more telling and introduces doubt about how the program could just be useless because parents are already educated to train their students to do well, so the program may be doing nothing (we can't be sure of that but it introduces that as a thought).
I was originally tempted by E, but I figured that correlation is not perfect. So, yes, there can be students who did NOT participate in the program but got good grades, and vice versa. It can be true that some kids do well regardless of their partiicpation in program, but the existence of these outliers does not weaken the overall claim being made here.
Ok I first said E was the answer, and then in the blind review I said B, but ok it makes sense that the one who weakeness most is B because is saying that the reason why the kids are performing better is because their parents are educators (which is an alternative hypotheses to the conclusion)
and E is just saying some (which could be 1 or all according to previous lessons) children who don't participate in the program did good in school, that is not an alternative hypothesis, it's just extra information
@LauraBolivar i did the same and I think E would be right in the sense of a sufficiency/necessity question type (i might be wrong but thats what im thinking from his explanation).
The main reason I eliminated e without a second of thought was that it didn't really have much to do with the conclusion.
Based on better grades, program should be expanded (paraphrased)
e was something like other students not in program do great as well.
Well... so what? Does that mean the new 'home' program is not effective? Why not still run it even if alternatives also lead lead to great results. (Sort of over analyzing my reasoning which was more immediate, but without watching the video yet, this was it)
The thing that trips me up is that to me B is strengthening the conclusion of why these programs should be implemented. I am not doing the best in these and not will probably have to backtrack which I did not want to do. :( these "weakened" arguments are just not clicking for me
I think I am trying to attack the conclusion that the programs should be expanded instead of the assumption that the better performance is due to the programs themselves, not some other factor.
Hey there! The conclusion here is "This shows that the programs are successful and should be expanded." What you should be attacking is the premises, you have to weaken the support for the argument. Make us doubt that "the programs are successful". The "should be expanded" goes hand in hand with the program being successful.
Im living in the blind review at this point of my studying path.. I alwayssss choose the wrong answer first and then I'm CONFIDENT that I know the right one, once I know that one is ruled out 😭
Got it wrong first because I was split between B and E. After listening to the explanation, I'm looking at this as an argument with a strict explanation; A > B, and why A only affects B. The sufficient A guarantees the necessary B. The prompt asks to search for which answer weakens the argument; therefore, challenge the sufficiency condition; that is, it proposes alternate sufficient condition, which only answer B does. There shouldn't be alternate sufficient conditions if a causation is to hold. Answer E challenges the necessary conditions by proposing alternate assumptions, which is fine. To recap, children's first education due to parent's participation in "first teacher program" causes better than average child performance, but nothing else should cause better than average performance.
I put E instead of B. I interpreted "success" for the program as relative improvement in child's grades between those of parents in the program vs. outside the program. So even if parents were educators, as long as the program improved their teaching ability and their kids' grades, it would still be a success.
B obviously makes sense if success for the program is "how much better the parent becomes at teaching." But that only feels like an intermediate goal or mechanism to an ultimate outcome (i.e. better grades), not the end goal within itself.
Is this where the language of "Some" in E and "Most" in B swings the balance? So E really reads "at least one kid did exceptionally well outside the program" vs. "at least half the parents were educators?"
The review video did not go into detail, so I want make sure I'm understanding this correctly.
I made the same mistake as you. For the argument I translated programs are successful and should be expanded. I guess with the correct answer (B) it makes sense as to why it would weaken the argument of the premise-the kids in these programs have better than average performance. Because their parents have experience, they can offer more valuable lessons or advanced skills. Therefore, their performance can come from any of those factors from the help of their parents.
The implication in Choice B is that what is causing the kids in the EEP program to do better in school, is not the EEP program itself, but being raised by a parent who has a background in education.
This weakens the argument that EEP programs are successful and should be expanded.
This is due to the fact that, in the case a child was in an EEP program being taught by a parent who did not have a background in education, there would be no additional benefit to the child and they would not have a higher school performance than average.
Choice B offers an alternative hypothesis (having parents w/ an education background is actually what is helping children achieve above average school performance), which weakens the argument.
Answer Choice E addresses children that were not in the EEP at all. It says that some of them do incredibly well in school. However, since they did not do the EEP they are ‘outside’ the correlation. They are, literally, outliers. The existence of outliers does not weaken correlation.
The secret to time: being able to confidently eliminate answers.
I find reading every choice vital since they can be so tricky in offering a tempting answer, but if I can eliminate as I go---I can keep a reasonable time.
That of course is my ideal... 13 secs over this time. Had to re-read the answer because I was nervous about getting it wrong. Should have just answered.
I had B and then switched to E. But I understand why E is wrong now. E is just bringing outside information that is not mentioned in the argument doesn't do anything to weaken or strengthen it. B attacks explicitly the argument that is outlined, which is: Participation -> Performance Increase. "some students doing well that didn't participate in the program" does not provide any reasoning as to what's wrong with the phenomenon. B saying "most of the students parents were experienced teachers" is stronger in attacking the argument because it's saying "ok all these kids parents are already teachers so of course this sample of kids is going to do really well"
You're allowed to bring in outside information in a Strengthen/Weaken question type (technically) because the correct answer choice is trying to either strengthen or weaken the stimulus. This wouldn't be the case for something like a Must Be True question where the task asked of you from the stem is different and you can't take in outside information because your basis for the correct answer choice is limited to the information in the stimulus. The issue with E being the incorrect answer has to do with the fact that some people doing well in school outside of the program has nothing to do about the strength of the program itself and your task is to weaken the conclusion that we should expand the program (or whatever, can't remember exactly what it was). B is correct because if the parents in the program are past educators then that could be the alternative reasoning as to why they did well in the program, not the program being a good program itself.
This one was pretty straightforward. I ruled out E because it was obviously an exception to the rule, rather being the rule itself. B was the strongest answer choice. Time was +00:11
The passage wants us to believe this: participation --> performance. However, if most of the parents participating in the program have prior education experience then the causal chain would look more like this: Parents w/ prior education exp. --> participation --> performance. Think of A-->B-->C. Therefore A-->C. Therefore, Parents w/ prior education exp. --> performance.
@thr107 Although I laughed reading this message because I had this same thought last night. "Is it worthwhile paying this money and getting these wrong?". Trust me it will get better, we only two weeks in there's so much more to approve!
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I got the correct answer (B) but for those that chose (E) my reasoning for ruling that one out was just remembering that there are always outliers. Remember in the previous lesson where the graphs were shown as a visual for the relationship between A and B -- that is what I remembered to rule out E. Just because there are outliers does not negate the fact that a correlation still exists between two phenomenon. Hope this helps someone!
great explanation!
Quick Note!
Look at the keywords answer choices e and b are using. E gives us information that is technically true, but it's not relevant! The keyword "some" in e could be any variation from 1 to all. But the keyword "most" in answer choice b significantly weakens the argument by implying that the majority of success isn't coming from the contents of the program, but from the prior educational experience of the parents!
I was going to go with B .... until I saw E...
I also got tripped up on this, but the explanation as to why E was not the right answer made sense to me.
@jordonkeener04593 E doesn’t weaken the argument because the fact that some children who didn’t participate performed exceptionally well doesn’t tell us whether participation caused the participating children to perform better. Those nonparticipants could simply be unusually strong students, and the argument never claims that children need the program in order to do well. So E doesn’t give us a reason to doubt that the program caused the better average performance. Students could do well outside the program, but maybe they are doing even better in the programs. Just because students did well outside the program, doesn't mean the quantity of students outside of the program is more than the quantity in the program. It simply does not tell enough, B on the other hand is a lot more telling and introduces doubt about how the program could just be useless because parents are already educated to train their students to do well, so the program may be doing nothing (we can't be sure of that but it introduces that as a thought).
i initially picked E because i forgot that correlation accounts for outliers
@aikol.iva me too and then i read it a second time and re-diagrammed, but tbh "most" threw me off in b
@aikol.iva Same.
@aikol.iva same here...do you mind explaining the outlier comment?
I was originally tempted by E, but I figured that correlation is not perfect. So, yes, there can be students who did NOT participate in the program but got good grades, and vice versa. It can be true that some kids do well regardless of their partiicpation in program, but the existence of these outliers does not weaken the overall claim being made here.
Ok I first said E was the answer, and then in the blind review I said B, but ok it makes sense that the one who weakeness most is B because is saying that the reason why the kids are performing better is because their parents are educators (which is an alternative hypotheses to the conclusion)
and E is just saying some (which could be 1 or all according to previous lessons) children who don't participate in the program did good in school, that is not an alternative hypothesis, it's just extra information
right?
@LauraBolivar i did the same and I think E would be right in the sense of a sufficiency/necessity question type (i might be wrong but thats what im thinking from his explanation).
The main reason I eliminated e without a second of thought was that it didn't really have much to do with the conclusion.
Based on better grades, program should be expanded (paraphrased)
e was something like other students not in program do great as well.
Well... so what? Does that mean the new 'home' program is not effective? Why not still run it even if alternatives also lead lead to great results. (Sort of over analyzing my reasoning which was more immediate, but without watching the video yet, this was it)
The thing that trips me up is that to me B is strengthening the conclusion of why these programs should be implemented. I am not doing the best in these and not will probably have to backtrack which I did not want to do. :( these "weakened" arguments are just not clicking for me
I think I am trying to attack the conclusion that the programs should be expanded instead of the assumption that the better performance is due to the programs themselves, not some other factor.
Hey there! The conclusion here is "This shows that the programs are successful and should be expanded." What you should be attacking is the premises, you have to weaken the support for the argument. Make us doubt that "the programs are successful". The "should be expanded" goes hand in hand with the program being successful.
Im living in the blind review at this point of my studying path.. I alwayssss choose the wrong answer first and then I'm CONFIDENT that I know the right one, once I know that one is ruled out 😭
@StarBrooks You will get better give it time. Stay focused
Last question of the foundations curriculum guys :(
@VanillaCat lol
Got it wrong first because I was split between B and E. After listening to the explanation, I'm looking at this as an argument with a strict explanation; A > B, and why A only affects B. The sufficient A guarantees the necessary B. The prompt asks to search for which answer weakens the argument; therefore, challenge the sufficiency condition; that is, it proposes alternate sufficient condition, which only answer B does. There shouldn't be alternate sufficient conditions if a causation is to hold. Answer E challenges the necessary conditions by proposing alternate assumptions, which is fine. To recap, children's first education due to parent's participation in "first teacher program" causes better than average child performance, but nothing else should cause better than average performance.
I put E instead of B. I interpreted "success" for the program as relative improvement in child's grades between those of parents in the program vs. outside the program. So even if parents were educators, as long as the program improved their teaching ability and their kids' grades, it would still be a success.
B obviously makes sense if success for the program is "how much better the parent becomes at teaching." But that only feels like an intermediate goal or mechanism to an ultimate outcome (i.e. better grades), not the end goal within itself.
Is this where the language of "Some" in E and "Most" in B swings the balance? So E really reads "at least one kid did exceptionally well outside the program" vs. "at least half the parents were educators?"
The review video did not go into detail, so I want make sure I'm understanding this correctly.
I made the same mistake as you. For the argument I translated programs are successful and should be expanded. I guess with the correct answer (B) it makes sense as to why it would weaken the argument of the premise-the kids in these programs have better than average performance. Because their parents have experience, they can offer more valuable lessons or advanced skills. Therefore, their performance can come from any of those factors from the help of their parents.
@duncan.aronson
The implication in Choice B is that what is causing the kids in the EEP program to do better in school, is not the EEP program itself, but being raised by a parent who has a background in education.
This weakens the argument that EEP programs are successful and should be expanded.
This is due to the fact that, in the case a child was in an EEP program being taught by a parent who did not have a background in education, there would be no additional benefit to the child and they would not have a higher school performance than average.
Choice B offers an alternative hypothesis (having parents w/ an education background is actually what is helping children achieve above average school performance), which weakens the argument.
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Answer Choice E addresses children that were not in the EEP at all. It says that some of them do incredibly well in school. However, since they did not do the EEP they are ‘outside’ the correlation. They are, literally, outliers. The existence of outliers does not weaken correlation.
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@jordkerns This makes so much more sense. Thank you!!!
@jordkerns I dont know why I spend time watching the videos when the comments help me understand better. Thank you this makes more sense!
This made today's lessons all click.
The secret to time: being able to confidently eliminate answers.
I find reading every choice vital since they can be so tricky in offering a tempting answer, but if I can eliminate as I go---I can keep a reasonable time.
That of course is my ideal... 13 secs over this time. Had to re-read the answer because I was nervous about getting it wrong. Should have just answered.
Correct and only 21 seconds over WAHOO!!!!
I had B and then switched to E. But I understand why E is wrong now. E is just bringing outside information that is not mentioned in the argument doesn't do anything to weaken or strengthen it. B attacks explicitly the argument that is outlined, which is: Participation -> Performance Increase. "some students doing well that didn't participate in the program" does not provide any reasoning as to what's wrong with the phenomenon. B saying "most of the students parents were experienced teachers" is stronger in attacking the argument because it's saying "ok all these kids parents are already teachers so of course this sample of kids is going to do really well"
You're allowed to bring in outside information in a Strengthen/Weaken question type (technically) because the correct answer choice is trying to either strengthen or weaken the stimulus. This wouldn't be the case for something like a Must Be True question where the task asked of you from the stem is different and you can't take in outside information because your basis for the correct answer choice is limited to the information in the stimulus. The issue with E being the incorrect answer has to do with the fact that some people doing well in school outside of the program has nothing to do about the strength of the program itself and your task is to weaken the conclusion that we should expand the program (or whatever, can't remember exactly what it was). B is correct because if the parents in the program are past educators then that could be the alternative reasoning as to why they did well in the program, not the program being a good program itself.
Wrong the first time, got it right the second!
@miaxalicia2003 I just keep second guessing myself some things sometimes just seem like its wrong
This one was pretty straightforward. I ruled out E because it was obviously an exception to the rule, rather being the rule itself. B was the strongest answer choice. Time was +00:11
correct and 3 seconds under. I. Am. Lit.
I was really thinking that the parents with expériences would strengthen the argument. I do understand better after the explanation.
Cant hear the audio. Seems much lower when compared to the rest of this section.
I did that so fast..... HELL YES
Here I find that the best thing to do is establish what is the relationship the author is trying to prove and then alternate explanations
Correct! And only 14 seconds over! Yay!
The passage wants us to believe this: participation --> performance. However, if most of the parents participating in the program have prior education experience then the causal chain would look more like this: Parents w/ prior education exp. --> participation --> performance. Think of A-->B-->C. Therefore A-->C. Therefore, Parents w/ prior education exp. --> performance.
I guess I should give up.
@thr107 Never
@thr107 Never dat brother
@thr107 feels like it at times! But then we get a question right and feel okay again (last two I got wrong) and finally got this one right!
@thr107 Although I laughed reading this message because I had this same thought last night. "Is it worthwhile paying this money and getting these wrong?". Trust me it will get better, we only two weeks in there's so much more to approve!
@thr107 you better keep going.