Educator: Support Few problems faced in daily life can be solved most effectively, if at all, by applying knowledge from any single academic discipline in isolation. █████ ███████ ██████ ███ ███████ ████████ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ███████████ ███ ██████ ███████ ███████ ████ ██ ████ █████████████████ ████████
The educator concludes that schools should require students to take interdisciplinary courses, rather than courses in individual academic disciplines. He supports this by saying that few problems faced in daily life can be effectively solved by applying knowledge from any single academic discipline alone.
The educator assumes that students can’t combine knowledge from different disciplines unless they learn to do so in an interdisciplinary course. In other words, he assumes that schools have to teach interdisciplinary courses in order for students to combine knowledge across disciplines. He also assumes that one of the goals of schools should be to teach students to effectively solve problems faced in daily life.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ ██████████ █████████
Problems faced in █████ ████ ███████ ███ ██ ██████ ███████████ █████ ████ ██████ ██████
This weakens the educator’s argument because, if students can effectively solve problems faced in daily life using only common sense, why does it matter whether schools teach interdisciplinary courses? Students can solve these problems either way.
Most teachers are ████ ██ █████ ███████ ██ █ ██████ ████████ ██████████ ████ ███████████ ████ ████ ███ █████ █████████████████ ████████
This weakens the argument because it provides a consequence of switching to an interdisciplinary teaching model. If teachers are more effective in teaching single subjects, the quality of education may decline if the educator's suggestion is followed.
Students who take ████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ███████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ █████████ ████ █████ ████████████
This strengthens the argument by addressing the assumption that students can’t combine knowledge from different disciplines unless they learn to do so in an interdisciplinary course. If that assumption is true, interdisciplinary teaching becomes much more necessary.
Most students who ███ ████████ ██ ████ ███████ ████ █████ ████ ██████ ███████████ ███ ███████████ █████ ████ ████████ █████ ██ █████ █████
Irrelevant— the premise tells us that “few” problems can be solved using knowledge from any single academic discipline. It follows that some problems can be effectively solved this way, so (D) doesn’t affect the argument either way.
Most interdisciplinary courses ███ ███ ████████ ████████████ ██ █████ ████████ ███ ██ █████ ████████ █████ ██ █████ █████
Irrelevant— just because courses aren't designed to teach students how to solve problems faced in daily life doesn’t mean that they won’t teach students to solve these problems.
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