Several three-year-olds who

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: cannot2% picked this

   There are some things that children cannot learn without the aid

   This has the right gist but goes way too far with it. We don't know that these 3 year olds would have found it impossible to learn their phone numbers without the aid of songs. We only seem to know that songs aided them in learning their number. Maybe an exercise in which all the kids had to paint their phone numbers would have also done the trick.

   2%
2. B

   2nd Half Doesn't Match9% picked this

   Familiarity with a concept is not always sufficient for knowing the words used

   This is lovably weak language. To support the idea that "X is not always sufficient for knowing Y", we only need one example in which someone knew X but didn't know Y. Can we say that these 3 year olds were, - familiar with the concept of their phone number but - didn't know the words used to express their phone number? No we can't. Because the words used to express a phone number are the names of digits ("eight-six-seven-five-three-zero-nine"), and "each child was familiar with the names of all the digits".

   9%
3. C

   Too Strong: better than any4% picked this

   Mnemonic devices such as songs are better than any other method

   Just like (A), this has the right gist, but it's way too strongly worded. We know that songs, in this case, helped 3 year olds to remember their phone number. That doesn't give us much support for the extreme claim that mnemonics are better than any other method for memorizing numbers. This situation didn't involve a comparison between all possible methods for memorizing numbers.

   4%
4. D

   2nd Half Doesn't Match6% picked this

   Children can learn to count without understanding the meaning

   This is lovably weak language. To support the idea that "Someone can do X without understanding Y", we only need one example in which someone can do X but doesn't understand Y. Can we say that these 3 year olds ... - can learn to count but - don't understand the meaning of numbers? No we can't. They had learned to count to ten, so we can say they can learn to count (at least somewhat). But we have no support for the idea that they don't understand the meaning of numbers. They might understand the meaning of "one" or "two". Memorizing a phone number isn't related to understanding the meaning of numbers. It's just related to remembering a sequence of numbers.

   6%
5. E

   Correct79% picked this

   Songs are useful in helping children remember the order in which

   Why this is right

   This captures the gist that "using a song helped them learn the phone number" without going to any hyperbolic overstatement. "Familiar words" is a reference to the fact that all the children were already familiar with the words in their phone number (the names of all the digits). If Sally's number is 525-6781, she is familiar with the words "five, two, six, seven, eight, one", but she couldn't remember the order in which those words occurred in her phone number, until we embedded her number in a song.

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

   79%