PrepTest 107, Section 4, Question 25
Formal performance evaluations in the professional world are(46 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(5 more words not shown)
- Acites examples that(18 more words not shown)
- Bfails to consider(14 more words not shown)
- Cneglects to take(19 more words not shown)
- Dneglects to take(17 more words not shown)
- Efails to consider(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Are we trying to test the same thing?
It makes sense that a professional evaluation might let a physician consult medical texts or an attorney consult legal materials. If those resources are available in the work being evaluated, letting the professional use them could make the assessment more realistic.
But a student exam might have a different purpose. Think about learning arithmetic. A calculator could produce the right answer while leaving the teacher unable to tell whether the student can perform the calculation. The fact that an adult might use a calculator at work would not settle how to test that student's developing skill.
That is an example of a possible difference, not an argument that every student exam should be closed-book. Sometimes an open-book exam may serve the teaching goal perfectly well. The problem is the recommendation that students should have textbooks whenever they take exams, based only on what professional evaluations permit.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, I would look for the missing comparison between the purposes of the two kinds of evaluation. Before transferring the rule, we need to know whether the feature that makes access useful in one setting also makes it useful in the other.
Working the answers
- A
The passage states that professional evaluations use realistic situations and supplies examples. The main problem is what the author then concludes about students. Even granting the professional practice exactly as described, we still need a reason to apply it to school exams. A challenges the opening generalization instead of identifying that unsupported transfer.
- B
Raising scores is not the stated purpose of the recommendation. An exam could serve its purpose without increasing most students' scores, and higher scores would not automatically show that the assessment was better. This possibility does not address whether professional and student evaluations should follow the same rule.
- C
The professionals' past experience with closed-book exams would tell us what happened, not whether the proposed change is appropriate. A practice is not justified simply because current professionals once experienced it. We need to compare the purposes of today's assessments.
- D
This points to a difference between the people being tested, which makes it tempting. But years of study alone do not tell us why textbooks should be allowed for one group and withheld from another. Students might need references too. E identifies the more relevant difference: what the evaluation is meant to measure.
- ECorrect
A professional evaluation might test someone's ability to do the job with the resources normally available. A school exam might test whether a student has learned a particular skill or body of knowledge without looking it up. If the purposes differ, a format that serves one could fail to serve the other. The author has not ruled out that possibility before recommending textbook access on every student exam.
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