Logical Reasoning

PT103 · S2 · Q22 Most students are bored by history

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Most students are bored by history courses as they are usually taught, primarily because a large amount of time is spent teaching dates and statistics.

Conclusion

The best way to teach history is to spend most class time recounting the lives of historical figures, and very little time on dates and statistics.

Evidence

Most students are bored by how history is usually taught, mainly because a large amount of time is spent teaching dates and stats.

Evaluate

Well, we have to find four valid assumptions in the answers. Maybe we can think of a few: - we're assuming that whether or not students are bored is at all relevant to whether or not we're teaching history the best way

- we're assuming that the solution would work (students would be less bored if we switched to more time on historical figures, less time on dates and stats)

- we're assuming that Plan B is the "best way" (maybe there's a third option we should consider that's even better than focusing on historical figures)

Goal

Let's look for answers either connecting language from the Premise to language from the Conclusion, or answers establishing that if we followed the author's plan we would see a positive difference, it wouldn't backfire in some way, or it wouldn't be ignoring a superior option.

22.

Each of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends EXCEPT:

  1. One should avoid boring one’s

    Assumed

    In order for the author to think we're not currently using the best method, she has to think that it's actually a problem that students are bored by the current method. If we negated this answer, it would say "you don't need to avoid boring students when teaching history", which would be an objection to our author's argument.

    13% picked this

  2. It is not incompatible with

    Assumed

    Because this has the magic word "not", which is frequently in valid Necessary Assumption answers, the easiest thing to do to evaluate it is negate the answer, by removing "not", and see if it turns into an objection: "It is incompatible with the teaching goals of history to spend very little class time on dates / stats". This negation definitely hurts the argument, because it makes the author's suggestion for the best way to teach history sound like a method that is incompatible with the teaching goals of history. Since the negation weakens, the answer was something the argument needed to assume.

    16% picked this

  3. Correct

    It is possible to recount

    Why this is right

    This is tempting, but if we negate it and say, "Hey, author, aren't you forgetting that it is impossible to focus on historical figures without referring to dates / stats?", she could just say, "No, I realize that. As you recall, I said we'll spend most of our time recounting the lives of historical figures, but I allowed for the fact that we'll need to spend some time with dates and stats."

    Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    53% picked this

  4. It is compatible with the

    Assumed

    If we negated this, it would say "it is incompatible with the goals of teaching history to spent most time on historical figures". It's gonna be hard for the author to argue that her plan is the best way to teach history if her plan is incompatible with the attainable teaching goals of teaching history. Since the negation of this idea badly weakens her argument, her argument had to assume this idea.

    4% picked this

  5. Students are more bored by

    Assumed

    This gets at the idea that the Author is assuming that her plan is better than the old plan, when it comes to the one stated negative about the old plan: it bores students. Any time an author says, "Problem X exists. That's why we should do Action Y", they will be assuming that "if we do Action Y, there will be less of Problem X"

    14% picked this

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