PrepTest 114, Section 1, Question 11
Some teachers claim that students would not learn(48 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(5 more words not shown)
- Atakes for granted(16 more words not shown)
- Btakes for granted(17 more words not shown)
- Cfails to consider(11 more words not shown)
- Dignores the possibility(23 more words not shown)
- Efails to consider(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What about students in the middle?
I wouldn't expect every student to stop learning if grades disappeared. Some people love a subject and would study it anyway. But I can also imagine students who need an incentive to do the work. The author hasn't ruled them out by describing the two extremes.
One group has intense interest, and another has no interest at all. Suppose a student finds the class somewhat interesting but would rather spend the evening doing something else. A grade might provide the extra push to study. That student fits neither description in the passage, so neither premise tells us how grades affect that student.
What we’re looking for
The flaw is the jump from 'grades aren't needed for these two groups' to 'grades serve no essential academic purpose.' I'd look for an answer pointing out the students the argument leaves out.
Working the answers
- A
The author doesn't need to assume that conveying information is the school's only purpose. A school could also help students socialize while the author makes this claim about grades and learning. The problem is the incomplete treatment of students, not an explicit restriction on everything schools may do.
- B
The author says intensely interested students would learn without grades and uninterested students are unaffected by them. That isn't a rule that anyone indifferent to grades must be interested in the material. The uninterested group itself makes that distinction important. B misdescribes the assumption the argument makes.
- C
The conclusion is about an essential academic purpose. Grades could serve a useful nonacademic purpose without conflicting with that conclusion. To expose the gap, we need a possible role for grades in learning, like motivating the moderately interested students.
- D
Choosing different material might make students more interested, but that is a different intervention. The argument concerns whether grades matter for learning the material being taught. D doesn't address the overlooked middle group or show that grades serve an academic purpose in the current situation.
- ECorrect
Not everyone is either fascinated or completely indifferent. The author leaves out students with some interest, for whom grades could make the difference between doing the work and not doing it. We don't have to prove that every such student needs grades. Leaving this group unexamined is enough to undermine the sweeping claim that grades have no essential academic purpose.
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