PrepTest 101, Section 2, Question 5
Altogether, the students in Ms. Tarnowski's Milton Elementary(32 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(14 more words not shown)
- AAltogether, more trees(35 more words not shown)
- BMore than half(38 more words not shown)
- CMr. Rowe's Milton(43 more words not shown)
- DThe total number(50 more words not shown)
- EMs. Ventura's Milton(42 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The winning class doesn't have to contain the winning student.
Suppose Ms. Tarnowski has thirty students, and each collects ten cans. Her class brings in 300 cans, more than any other class. That's consistent with the premise. But none of her students individually collected more than ten.
Now give another class a total of 200 cans. One student collected fifty of them, and the other students collected the remaining 150. The second class loses the class competition, but its fifty-can student collected more than anyone in Ms. Tarnowski's class. Her class can have the biggest total while the best individual collector is somewhere else.
What we’re looking for
That's the jump to keep in view: the evidence compares whole classes, while the conclusion identifies the best individual student. For the parallel, we need another argument that assumes the group with the largest total must contain the person with the largest individual contribution. Matching the school setting or the idea of a competition won't be enough.
Working the answers
- A
This comparison stays at the group level. If Kelly's class planted more trees than Liang's and Jackson's classes combined, it planted more than Jackson's class alone. For example, if Liang's class planted thirty trees and Jackson's planted fifty, beating their combined eighty would also mean beating Jackson's fifty. The conclusion follows from the total comparison. It never identifies an individual student with the highest contribution.
- B
The two majorities could overlap. Imagine 100 students: the same sixty students are in both the band and the choir, and the remaining forty are in neither. Both premises would be true, but the conclusion about every student would be false. That is a mistake about whether two groups cover the whole school. It doesn't move from the largest class total to the largest individual contribution.
- C
More money doesn't necessarily mean more items sold. Ten candy bars at ten dollars each would raise 100 dollars; ninety raffle tickets at one dollar each would raise 90 dollars. The candy sale would raise more money while selling fewer items. That explains C's flaw, but it's a different flaw. Changing from cans to money wouldn't itself disqualify an answer. What disqualifies C is changing from revenue to item count instead of from a group's total to an individual's contribution.
- DCorrect
Ms. Ramirez's class has the largest total ticket sales, corresponding to Ms. Tarnowski's class having the largest total can collection. The conclusion then puts the top individual ticket seller in that class, just as the original puts the top individual collector in the winning class.
Our counterexample works here too. Lots of students each selling ten tickets could give Ramirez's class the highest total, while one student in a lower-selling class sells fifty. The group's total doesn't establish where the individual record holder is. D matches both the evidence and the unsupported step.
- E
This concludes something about the average per student, not the best individual student. It also gives an extra fact: the class with the larger total has fewer students sharing that total. More birdhouses divided among fewer students means a higher average. For example, 300 birdhouses among thirty students averages ten, while 200 among forty averages five. That average comparison is justified by the stated conditions. It still wouldn't identify which class contains the single most productive student, but E doesn't claim to do that.
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