PrepTest 117, Section 2, Question 3
In the past, combining children of different ages(63 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(12 more words not shown)
- AOn average, mixed-age(14 more words not shown)
- BMixed-age classrooms of(10 more words not shown)
- CToday's mixed-age classrooms,(16 more words not shown)
- DToday's mixed-age classrooms(14 more words not shown)
- EFew of the(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A seven-year-old and a fifteen-year-old usually aren't ready for the same lesson. If we teach something the older student already knows, the older student gets bored. If we move ahead to unfamiliar material, the younger student may get lost. So the earlier problems with mixed-age classrooms make sense.
Then why are those classrooms working so well now?
Something about the way they're taught may have changed. Could students be learning at their own pace with better materials? Perhaps computers let different students receive different lessons while staying in the same room. That would be one possible way to avoid forcing everyone through the same instruction.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to explain the apparent discrepancy. We should accept both results: the arrangement generally failed before, and it works well now. Look for a change that helps explain that improvement. Technology is a prediction to test, not a requirement that the answer must mention computers.
Working the answers
- A
More students doesn't explain how younger children now receive adequate instruction or why older children are engaged. If anything, adding students could make individual attention harder to provide. We aren't given a reason that the larger enrollment solves either of the old problems.
- B
This puts the better equipment in the classrooms that failed. If improved equipment were our explanation, we'd want today's classrooms to have the advantage. Having less equipment now doesn't help explain their better results without some additional story about why that matters.
- CCorrect
The change is in the work students do together. Today's classes use group projects that engage children of different ages, unlike the old classes. Instead of making older children sit through lessons they already know while younger children struggle, the new approach gives the different ages work they can engage with.
That's a different solution from the computer idea, but it answers the same question: what has changed about the classroom experience? The passage tells us the new approach works. C gives us a relevant difference that helps explain why; it doesn't need to prove that group projects are the only possible solution.
- D
A greater spread of ages doesn't explain the improvement. Imagine widening the range to include three-year-olds and twenty-year-olds. That could make finding suitable instruction harder, not easier. The exact ages are just an illustration: increasing the difference between students doesn't itself show how the old difficulty was overcome.
- E
What kind of classroom the teachers attended as children doesn't tell us what they're doing differently as teachers now. They could have learned in either setting and still use the same unsuccessful teaching method. We need a connection to the new classroom results, and E doesn't supply one.
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