Self-study
Conclusion Educational television is a contradiction in terms. █████ █ █████████ ██████████ ██████ ████████████ ██████████ ██████████ █████████ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ █████████ ███ ██████████ ███████ ████ ██████████ ████████ ██████ ███████ ███ ██ █ ██████████ ███ ██ ██████ █ █████ ██ ██ ████ ███ ██ ██████████ ██ ██ ███ ███ ██ ███████
Argument Summary
The stimulus leads with its conclusion: educational television is a contradiction in terms — i.e., television can't be educational. Three premises are provided, each contrasting "the classroom" or "school" with television. First, the classroom encourages social interaction, while television encourages solitude; second, school focuses on language, while television focuses on images; third, in the classroom, fun is a means to an end, while on television fun is an end in itself.
Identify Necessary Assumptions
From the premise-conclusion structure, you might be tempted to point out that the argument assumes that something that encourages solitude, focuses on images, and treats fun as an end in itself — i.e., that has all three characteristics that television has — cannot be educational. You would be right, but that would be a sufficient assumption. There's another noticeable jump in this argument that helps us identify a necessary assumption. Notice that all the premises talk about "the classroom" or "school," and the conclusion is about education in general. This suggests that a necessary assumption here is that if something does not look like school or the classroom in at least these three respects, it does not count as education — i.e., education must look like the classroom in at least these three respects.
1.
Upon which one of the █████████ ███████████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ███ ████████
a
The classroom should ███ ██ █ █████ █████ ██████ ███ ████
Incorrect. The argument doesn't depend on value claims about what the classroom "should" or "should not" be. All the claims about the classroom are descriptive.
b
Only experiences that ███████ ████████ ████ █████ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ███████████ ███ ██ ████████████
Correct. This captures the assumption we identified in the stimulus. All the premises only contrast the traditional school environment with television, but the conclusion states that television cannot be educational. This means the argument assumes that an educational experience must resemble the school environment. If you were to negate this answer choice, the argument wouldn't hold up.
c
Television programs reinforce ████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ████████████
Incorrect. The author makes no claims about whether television programs do or do not reinforce "some" of the values of the school environment. This point isn't relevant to the author's claim that, for the reasons provided in the stimulus, television can't be educational.
d
Educational television programs ███ █████████████ ██████ ████ ████ █████ ██████████ █████████
Incorrect. The author doesn't assume that "educational television" programs are better than other programs. This point is irrelevant to the argument that, for the reasons listed, the term "educational television" itself is a contradiction.
e
The potential of ██████████ ██ █ ████████ ████████ ████ ███ ███ ███ ████ █████████
Incorrect. Nothing in the author's argument talks about the future, or the power of television for "learning" (as opposed to "education"). The argument is just that television is currently not educational because it doesn't resemble the school environment.