Questions that feel like they require prior knowledge

Zoe.blevins

I was doing some LR drills, and Q26 on PT 6 S3 felt like I just needed prior knowledge to answer the question successfully. I feel like this is what catches me up on a lot of questions that are rated as max difficulty. I really struggle with the stimulus content and question wording and it just feels impossible to answer. Has anyone done this question specifically and could give me a breakdown of how they came to the right answer? Or just general tips for handling an extra wordy stimulus?

sopiyaaa

I can try to explain! This is just how I understood it correctly, and there are probably other ways to approach this.

THE PASSAGE: In this passage, policy proposals exist that aim to extend the school year in the United States. But, these proposals often receive the common objection that “curtailing the schools’ 3 month summer vacation would violate an established United States tradition dating back to the 19th century.” In other words, according to these people who object, getting rid of the 3 month summer break would violate American tradition. And our author states that this objection is a wrong one to make in response to such proposals. So, for the author’s counter argument:

(A) is incorrect because the objection in the passage does not rely on a “misunderstanding about the amount of time each year the United States schools traditionally have been closed.” In the counter argument, the author even concedes that it is true that schools were in fact closed for 3 months every summer in the 19th century (the same as the length of time claimed in the objection).

(B) is incorrect because the author does not “call into question the relevance of information about historical practices…” Actually, the information about the American tradition (historical practice) is still very relevant to the author’s counter argument for policy. The author goes even further to argue that this tradition can be relevant in a situation in which policy were to extend/limit the length of the school year based upon economic need.

(C) is correct because the author is “arguing for an alternate understanding…” The author is saying, “yes, you’re right that this was an actual American practice; however, the reason for it was not because those 3 months in particular were somehow important special months, but RATHER because Americans needed their children in the fields in the summertime instead. Using this thought process, it would be more appropriate to propose an extension/limitation on the school year based on this actual ‘tradition’ of ‘economic need,’ which may differ from the 3 months needed for agricultural work in the 19th century.” Then, the school year could be extended all year long if the US had no need for child workers. Or, this tradition could also justify further limitation of the school year if economic need for children in the workforce was strong. In the end, it doesn’t matter. We don’t know. What we do know is that the author has now raised an alternate explanation to explain why the original objection is off. Because the objection “curtailing the schools’ 3 month summer vacation would violate an established United States tradition dating back to the 19th century” is not the same as an objection stating “curtailing the economic need for a school break in order to include children in the workforce for certain months would would violate an established United States tradition dating back to the 19th century.” The American tradition is not the 3 months; the tradition is the idea that economic need dictates when children receive school breaks. This is why the original objection was wrong. Someone could curtail the 3 month summer break and still be in accordance with this tradition.

(D) is incorrect because the passage does not mention the opponents or their concern in the counter argument at all. We cannot know if there is an argument for no genuine concern among them.

(E) is incorrect because the author never made a claim that we must “bring the US school year in line with that of the rest of the industrialized world.” All the author counterclaimed was that the common objection to this policy (“curtailing the schools’ 3 month summer vacation would violate an established United States tradition dating back to the 19th century”) was incorrect.

In the end, I don’t think you need to have any prior knowledge to answer this problem. You just need to identify the author’s argument and premises and figure out which answer choice describes that. A lot of the answer choices described things that simply were not present in the author’s counter argument.