PrepTest 109, Section 3, Question 2
Brewer: All children should be given the opportunity(74 more words not shown)
Polanski's response most strongly supports(10 more words not shown)
- Acharacteristics acquired by(11 more words not shown)
- Bwinning at competitive(9 more words not shown)
- Cchildren should put(11 more words not shown)
- Dchildren should be(10 more words not shown)
- Echildren cannot be(6 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Giving children a chance to play isn't the same as making them play.
Brewer's recommendation is to make competitive sports available to all children. I can see the appeal of the reason offered: competition engages their emotions and encourages effort. That doesn't settle every question about what children need, but the proposed opportunity is easy to distinguish from a requirement.
Polanski raises a concern I can also understand. Imagine a child who dislikes competition being forced into a game of dodgeball. The experience could make that child dislike athletics rather than develop a desire to excel. A benefit for enthusiastic competitors doesn't mean the activity helps every unwilling participant.
But who said the unwilling child had to participate? Brewer didn't. The child could have the opportunity and turn it down. Polanski's concern about forced participation could be true without defeating Brewer's recommendation.
What we’re looking for
The question asks what Polanski mistakenly takes Brewer to be asserting. Our prediction is that participation should be mandatory, even for children who aren't interested. That is the stronger recommendation Polanski attacks, but Brewer never makes it.
Working the answers
- A
The dispute isn't about how long the effects of sports last. Even if some effects carry into adulthood, we would still have the same misunderstanding: Brewer offers an opportunity, while Polanski objects to a requirement. Polanski's response doesn't show that this claim about lifelong effects is what Brewer was taken to mean.
- B
Nobody says children must win to become motivated. Polanski acknowledges that competition motivates some children, then worries about forcing children who dislike it to participate. The response doesn't depend on attributing a winning requirement to Brewer.
- C
Brewer doesn't rank sports above schoolwork, music, or every other activity. Polanski doesn't object that sports would consume too much effort at those activities' expense, either. The objection concerns children who don't want to compete, not the relative importance of their different pursuits.
- DCorrect
This is the mandatory-participation claim we predicted. Polanski objects that making uninterested children compete would give them an antipathy toward athletics—a dislike of it. That objection treats Brewer as requiring participation regardless of interest.
Brewer only says every child should have the opportunity. A child can receive that opportunity without being required to use it, so the two speakers aren't addressing the same recommendation.
- E
Brewer identifies engaging emotions as a way to encourage effort. That doesn't establish that motivation is impossible without it. More importantly, Polanski's objection isn't that children can be motivated without emotion. It is that some children would be harmed by being made to compete.
More Must Be True questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Must Be True questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.