Educator: Reducing class sizes

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong6% picked this

   Class sizes in the school district should be reduced only if doing so would improve

   Too Strong: only if Out of Scope: should be The author isn't ever saying anything should / shouldn't be done. He is just talking about whether reducing class size probably would / wouldn't improve overall achievement. We can't infer that the author is assuming a harsh conditional that "the only reason you'd ever reduce class size is to improve student achievement". If we see conditional answers, we can always ask ourselves, "Did the author make this move?" Did this author say student achievement should not reduce wouldn't be reduced ? class size ? Nope.

   6%
2. B

   Illegal Opposite Negating it Strengthens3% picked this

   At least some qualified teachers in the school district would be able to improve the overall achievement of students in their classes

   This answer is trying to bait people into thinking that an Inference we can (supposedly) derive is the same as an assumption. Since the author said that underqualified teachers hurt educational outcomes, this answer acts like the author must be assuming the idea that "qualified teachers help educational outcomes". We aren't allowed to flip statements like that. I can say that "green knives are dangerous for babies" without that meaning that I'm assuming that "non-green knives are not dangerous for babies". If we negated this answer and said that "even the qualified teachers wouldn't be able to improve the overall achievement if class sizes were reduced", then that would only support the author's conclusion.

   3%
3. C

   Out of Scope: students place value2% picked this

   Students place a greater value on having qualified teachers than on

   It's irrelevant what students place greater value on. This argument only cares what is more likely to improve overall student performance. We don't know if students place greater value on things that are necessarily more likely to improve their performance. They might place greater value on "long recess" than on "lots of homework".

   2%
4. D

   Too Strong: most, all, any23% picked this

   Hiring more teachers would not improve the achievement of any students in the school district if most or all of

   Our author is assuming that "if some of the teachers we're hiring are going to be underqualified, then it will probably hurt overall student achievement". But she doesn't have to be committed to the idea that "not one single student's achievement would be improved". It's certainly conceivable in the author's mind that if most of the new hired teachers are underqualified, it will still reduce class sizes in some classrooms with qualified teachers, and in those classrooms there could be some students that benefit from more individualized attention and thus obtain improved achievement. Her conclusion is "probably" that "overall" achievement would go down. A tentative claim about overall / average achievement is way weaker than this definite claim about every single student.

   23%
5. E

   Correct66% picked this

   Qualified teachers could not be persuaded to relocate in significant numbers to the educator's region

   Why this is right

   Because this has the appealing ruling out language ("not") that we see in lots of correct Necessary Assumption answers, our first reaction would be to go to the Negation Test and see if this turns into an Objection. If we were to say that "qualified teachers could be persuaded to relocate in significant numbers to the region", would that be an Objection? Yes! Our author was primarily concerned that we would need to hire underqualified teachers since there's a shortage of qualified teachers in the region. But negating this answer is saying, "You don't need to worry about that --- we can persuade significant numbers of qualified teachers to relocate here, so the newly hired teachers could very well all be qualified teachers."

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

   66%