Educator: If there is a crisis

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: increasingly3% picked this

   Increasingly, institutions are granting meaningless degrees

   The author doesn't say that there's been some change for the worse, when it comes to the meaningfulness of degrees and certificates. She said, if there's a crisis in education, not that there is a crisis in education. She said we can obtain credentials without learning much (thereby making the credentials almost meaningless), but she never said that this is increasingly happening.

   3%
2. B

   Unknown Comparison: easier6% picked this

   It has become easier for students to complete their coursework without learning

   Nothing in this paragraph talks about anything that has changed, so there's no support for "easier".

   6%
3. C

   Too Strong: cease0% picked this

   Educational institutions should cease to grant degrees

   The author has not argued that universities should stop granting all degrees and certificates. If anything, it sounds more like a warning to students that they should make sure they're actually learning something of value, en route to these credentials.

   0%
4. D

   Correct88% picked this

   Degrees and certificates do not guarantee that a person has acquired

   Why this is right

   The phrasing X does not guarantee Y is very weak. You only need one example in which X is true but Y is not. Can we support the idea that sometimes a person would acquire a degree / certificate but not have much worthwhile knowledge? Yes. The author told us that you can obtain degrees and certificates without ever learning much of value. This does Reconcile the Pivot, as we somewhat suspected. It combines the wording of "degrees and certificates" from the 2nd sentence with the ideas in the final two sentences (which use the word "credentials" to refer to degrees and certificates).

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

   88%
5. E

   Too Strong3% picked this

   A person benefits from an education only to the extent that he or she invests

   Too Strong: only to the extent that Out of Scope: effort The author makes it sound like if you don't learn much of value, then your credential is pretty meaningless. But that's not the same as saying, "the benefit you get from your education is directly proportional to effort". The phrasing of "only to the extent that" is just too harsh and specific.

   3%