PrepTest 108, Section 2, Question 16
Researcher: Results indicate that the higher their educational(40 more words not shown)
The reasoning of the researcher's(13 more words not shown)
- AResults indicate that(36 more words not shown)
- BResults from competition(40 more words not shown)
- CStudies indicate that(46 more words not shown)
- DSurveys indicate that(46 more words not shown)
- EStudies suggest that(41 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
More schooling goes with better math skills. I can see why: someone who stays through high school has opportunities to learn math that a first grader hasn't encountered. But that association alone doesn't tell us what caused the difference.
What if students who were already good at math are more likely to stay in school? People sometimes stick with activities they enjoy or find easier, while people who struggle leave. That is a possibility, not a claim about every student. It would explain why the students reaching higher levels have better skills without showing that the additional education produced those skills.
What we’re looking for
That's the researcher's point. Don't treat the association as proof that education improved mathematical ability; the earlier ability might help explain who continued their education. For the parallel question, I want the same caution in a new setting: two things go together, but perhaps the supposed result was already there and helped produce the other thing.
Working the answers
- A
This questions what differences in paper quality tell us about educational quality by suggesting a problem in the review process. It doesn't suggest that people who already produce better papers are the ones who go on to attend the universities offering more education. A challenges how the results were obtained or assessed rather than offering the researcher's reversed direction of explanation.
- BCorrect
Being a professional athlete matches reaching a higher educational level. Better athletic performance matches better mathematical skills. The observed association is that professionals perform better than amateurs, just as more advanced students do better at math.
But becoming a professional may not be what made the athlete better. Perhaps the better athletes were the ones who became professionals in the first place. That is exactly the researcher's alternative: earlier ability could explain entry into the group, instead of membership in the group explaining the ability. Neither argument has to prove that this alternative is what actually happened.
- C
This offers a different explanation for why prestigious-school graduates get good jobs: employers may value the school's name rather than the preparation it provides. But the proposed cause still runs from attending the school to getting the job, through employers' impressions. A matching argument would suggest that the people already better positioned to get good jobs were the ones who attended prestigious schools. C doesn't make that move.
- D
Leaving some politicians out of a survey could make the results misleading. That is a concern about the sample. Our researcher doesn't say students were omitted from the study; the researcher offers another way to explain the association. A closer parallel would suggest that people already better at politics were more likely to obtain law degrees.
- E
Some people being good at higher mathematics and poor at arithmetic doesn't mean nobody can be good at both. E points to people good at both to reject that sweeping incompatibility claim. It doesn't challenge a proposed cause by suggesting that an earlier ability helped produce the apparent cause.
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