Education critics' contention that the

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct61% picked this

   presents only evidence whose relevancy to the issue raised by the opponents has

   Why this is right

   This is a weird answer. It's basically totally disrespecting the evidence, since this evidence doesn't ever actually address the issue of calculators head-on. If I ran for office as a Democrat and said, "I'm going to protect gun rights", someone might argue, "Don't listen to him. Every previous Democrat has tried to scale back gun rights." LSAT would reject that sort of logic. So what? This isn't every previous Democrat. This is Patrick Patrickson. Consider him on his own merits, even if his name is hella dumb. Similarly, if people are concerned that use of calculators will hurt students' knowledge of calculational procedures, then let's hear some educational science evidence to back that up or to challenge that. If we're going to say that this concern is clearly false, we better have some data or some ideas specific to kids using calculators in math classes. Otherwise, we're just talking about other situations, and who knows whether they're relevant here? So in one sense, this answer is saying, "Why should I believe that this evidence about past instances of new information-handling technology is relevant to this situation with using calculators in math class?" It can also be interpreted to mean, "Why should I care that previous instances of new technology were met with skeptical accusations? You haven't established that the people who were worried about the new technology turned out to be wrong about their fears. Without hearing that part of the equation, I have no way to judge the impact of the fact that people previously had fears. After all, if their fears turned out to be ill-founded, then that would help my argument, not yours."

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

   61%
2. B

   Not Equivocation10% picked this

   draws a conclusion based on an ambiguous notion

   This somewhat refers to the famous Equivocation flaw, in which the author uses the same term or concept multiple times to mean different things. We're not angry at this argument because we don't have a definition of "knowledge". We're mad because the author is rejecting this claim about calculators and math class without saying anything about calculators or math class.

   10%
3. C

   Not Assumed / Too Strong: always12% picked this

   takes for granted that the advantages offered by new information-handling technologies always

   Since this answer begins with takes for granted / presumes, we can ask ourselves whether it presents a Necessary Assumption. Did this argument need to assume that new technologies always have advantages that outweigh the disadvantages? Of course not. We'd never pick an answer that strong on Necessary Assumption, so for the same reason we wouldn't here. The author is only concluding something about calculators. She doesn't have to commit to any beliefs about every single one of history's long pantheon of new information-handling technologies.

   12%
4. D

   Not Necessary vs. Sufficient6% picked this

   takes a condition that suffices to prove its conclusion to be a condition necessary for the

   This somewhat refers to the #1 famous flaw, Necessary vs. Sufficient, in which the author presents a conditional logic relationship in a premise and then applies that relationship in an illegal backwards or negated fashion. There's nothing resembling that going on here. We could call the 2nd sentence a conditional logic premise, if we wanted to: If new info handling ? Then produced same technology accusation For this argument to then commit a Nec vs. Suff flaw with that conditional, the author would have needed to argue, "Since this same accusation has been levied against calculators in math class, we can conclude that calculators in math class must be a new info handling technology", or she would have argued, "Since calculators in math class aren't a new info handling technology, we can conclude that calculators in math class have not prompted such accusations."

   6%
5. E

   Bad Evidence Match11% picked this

   concludes that a hypothesis is false simply because it contradicts other beliefs held by the

   When an answer says Concludes X simply because Y, then X should match the Conclusion and Y should match the Premise. The conclusion was indeed saying that a hypothesis is false. Was the evidence saying that the critics' hypothesis contradicts other beliefs they hold? No the evidence didn't talk about the critics at all.

   11%