PrepTest 107, Section 1, Question 13
The top priority of the school administration should(25 more words not shown)
The pattern of reasoning in(14 more words not shown)
- AThe top priority(30 more words not shown)
- BThe top priority(37 more words not shown)
- CThe top priority(29 more words not shown)
- DThe top priority(31 more words not shown)
- EThe top priority(35 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Students have to show up for the school's resources to help them. I can see that. An excellent class with nobody in it doesn't teach anyone.
Does attendance therefore have to be the top priority? What about safety? If the heat is out during a freezing winter, getting more children into the building might not be the first problem to solve. The argument gives a reason attendance matters without comparing it with every other possible priority.
Now we're asked for the reasoning that is least similar. Four choices should match the structure, and one should depart from it. Put the school's argument in ordinary terms: make attendance the priority, because the teachers, books, and facilities do no good if the students aren't there. The reason for prioritizing one thing is that the other useful things depend on it.
What we’re looking for
That's what I want to track. Each matching answer needs a proposed priority and an explanation of why other resources or abilities lose their value without it.
Working the answers
- A
This matches. Keeping customers comfortable takes the role of getting students to attend. Honesty and product knowledge take the roles of teachers, texts, and facilities. The argument says those abilities are useful only if the customer feels at ease, so avoiding alienation should come first. The wording shifts slightly, but the same dependence of other useful things on the proposed priority is there.
- B
This also matches. Food is the proposed priority, and finding the way home or building shelter are the other useful abilities. Without enough food to survive, those abilities do no good. That repeats the school's claim that its other resources cannot help without attendance.
- C
Physical evidence is the priority; laboratory equipment and analysis are the resources that cannot help without crucial clues. The choice uses 'physical evidence' and 'crucial clues' in closely related roles. That small wording change doesn't remove the clear structure: gather the needed material because the other tools are useless without it.
- D
Books take the role of attending students. The library's staff and facilities take the roles of the school's teachers and facilities. If there aren't enough books to lend, those other resources lose their value. This is the same reason for putting one need first.
- ECorrect
This tells us a benefit of obtaining a not-guilty verdict: innocent clients can be released and return to their lives. It does not say that the lawyer's other resources are useless without that verdict.
A closer match would say that an impressive office, professional contacts, and other advantages do no good if the lawyer cannot protect innocent clients from conviction. Whether that revised argument would be convincing is a separate question. The point is that E gives a beneficial consequence, while the original makes other benefits depend on the proposed priority.
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