Self-study
In defending the Hyperion School of Journalism from charges that its program is of little or no value to its students, the dean of the school pointed to its recent success in placing students: 65 percent of its graduates went on to internships or jobs in print or broadcast journalism.
Summarize Argument
The dean's argument supports the conclusion that Hyperion's journalism program is valuable to students. The evidence is that 65 percent of recent graduates from the program found work in journalism.
Notable Assumptions
The dean assumes that the 65 percent figure indicates that the journalism program is of some value to its students. In other words, the assumption is that some of those students wouldn’t have otherwise secured journalism internships or jobs.
5.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████████ ██████████ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ █████
a
More than half ██ ███ ████████ ████████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███████ █████ ███████
This means that at most only 14 percent of students got new journalism jobs at the end of the program—the rest of the 65 percent already had jobs. Thus, the program isn’t helping students as much as the dean implies, undermining the argument.
b
Some newspaper editors ██ ███ ██████ ██████████ ██████ ██ █ █████████ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ █ ███████████
Even if a few newspaper editors don’t think it’s necessary, it may still be helpful. This doesn't truly challenge the dean’s claim that the program is useful to its students.
c
The number of ██████ ████ ████ ████ ███ █████ █████████ ███ ████████ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ██████
This is irrelevant, because it doesn't give us enough information to judge what it means for the argument. Even if this means that journalism jobs are rare, that would only support the dean's argument.
d
The program offered ██ ███ ████████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ █████████████
We’re not comparing across schools, so this is irrelevant. We don't know if other programs are valuable, meaning a comparison can't tell us whether this particular program was of value to its students.
e
The proportion of ██████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████ ███ ████████ ██ █████ ████ ██ ███ ███ █████ ████
We don’t care if the program is competitive to get into. We’re concerned with its value to students, and this doesn't affect the dean's argument defending that value.