PrepTest 116, Section 2, Question 10
When students receive negative criticism generated by computer(42 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AStudents are more(15 more words not shown)
- BUnlike human critics,(6 more words not shown)
- CStudents always know(7 more words not shown)
- DCriticism generated by(19 more words not shown)
- ECriticism generated by(22 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
I'd almost expect the opposite reaction. A spelling program correcting my essay might feel less personal than a classmate criticizing it. Still, let's accept what this argument tells us: students respond more positively to criticism from humans.
At first the conclusion sounds reasonable. A better response seems likely to help students learn. But hold on—what if the classmate is pleasant and the suggested edits are useless? I might react warmly without learning anything that improves my writing. Liking the criticism and learning from it aren't automatically the same.
The argument moves from a positive response, through acceptance, to learning. Acceptance requires a positive response, but we still need a reason to connect this reception with educational benefit. My first thought is that the human criticism has to be useful enough for students to learn from it; being better received won't help if there's nothing worth learning.
What we’re looking for
We're asked for an assumption the argument depends on. Keep that gap in view. The needed idea must help explain why the favorable reception matters to learning, rather than simply tell us why a student might prefer a human critic.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This supplies the connection in a different form: students are more likely to learn from criticism they accept than from criticism they reject. The argument uses acceptance as a step toward its conclusion about learning, so it needs acceptance to matter in this way.
My initial concern was pleasant but useless edits. A doesn't compare the quality of human and computer edits directly. It instead supplies the broader link the reasoning relies on: accepted criticism is a better source of learning. Without that link, the discussion of students' reception doesn't support the claimed learning advantage.
- B
Compassion isn't required for the argument to work. Computers could show compassion and students could still respond differently to them for some other reason. The argument starts with that difference in response; it doesn't need this particular explanation for why the difference exists.
- C
“Always” asks for far more than the argument needs. Some students could be mistaken about who supplied a comment while the stated overall difference in response still holds. We don't have to assume perfect identification of every critic to connect acceptance with learning.
- D
How favorable criticism is and how positively students receive it are different things. A human could give a harsh assessment that a student welcomes, while a computer's milder assessment irritates the student. The argument doesn't require computer criticism to be less favorable. It needs a connection between reception and learning.
- E
Nor does the argument need the two kinds of criticism to be equally favorable. Their assessments could differ while the stated response pattern remains true. D and E offer different comparisons of the criticism itself, but neither supplies the missing reason that accepting criticism makes learning more likely.
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