Psychologists report that children

Answer choices

1. A

   Irrelevant Comparison5% picked this

   relies on an unsubstantiated assumption about the comparative worth of academic and

   The argument's assumptions are about whether students will forget schooling during breaks, not about the comparative value of academic vs. nonacademic learning. The argument explicitly states its conclusion applies "insofar as academic learning is concerned," so it is already limiting itself to academic considerations. An assumption about the relative worth of academic and nonacademic experiences is not what makes this argument vulnerable.

   5%
2. B

   Bad Evidence Match2% picked this

   draws on an arbitrary distinction between

   This answer describes an arbitrary distinction between two groups. But the argument compares two scheduling plans, not two groups of students. No actual group of twelve-month-schedule students is mentioned — the argument is making predictions about a proposed schedule. Furthermore, the distinction between the two schedules (nine months with summer vs. twelve months with shorter breaks) is not "arbitrary" — it is the substantive basis for the comparison. The argument's flaw is not that it makes an arbitrary distinction but that it assumes an unproven advantage for one of the compared options.

   2%
3. C

   Correct80% picked this

   takes for granted, in comparing two situations, that a certain undesirable result is correlated with

   Why this is right

   This precisely describes the argument's flaw. The argument identifies an undesirable result — students forgetting their schooling during breaks — and presents evidence that this result occurs in the nine-month schedule. It then assumes this result is correlated only with the nine-month schedule, concluding that the twelve-month schedule will prevent forgetting. But no evidence is offered about whether students in twelve-month programs also forget during their month-long breaks. The argument "takes for granted" that the negative outcome is unique to one option when it could easily affect both. This is the incomplete-comparison flaw at the heart of the argument.

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

   80%
4. D

   Bad Evidence Match13% picked this

   fails to show that the data on which the psychologists’ conclusions were based was adequately representative of children in

   This answer suggests the data on nine-month schools might not be representative of children generally. But the argument does not need the data to be representative of all children — it only needs the data to be accurate about children in nine-month schools, which is what the psychologists studied. Furthermore, the argument's flaw is not about the quality of the evidence about nine-month schools; it is about the absence of evidence about twelve-month schools. The data could be perfectly representative, and the argument would still be flawed for assuming the twelve-month schedule avoids the forgetting problem.

   13%
5. E

   Self-Contradiction1% picked this

   claims to accept a view, but then rejects it in the

   This answer describes a self-contradiction flaw: accepting a view and then rejecting it. No such contradiction exists in this argument. The argument presents the psychologists' finding about nine-month schools and uses it as evidence — it never rejects or contradicts it. The argument consistently treats the finding as reliable and builds upon it. If anything, the problem is that the argument over-relies on the finding by applying it selectively to one schedule while assuming the other is immune.

   1%