PrepTest 126, Section 3, Question 18
Many parents rigorously organize their children's activities during(55 more words not shown)
The argument is most vulnerable(9 more words not shown)
- AIt takes for(19 more words not shown)
- BIt overlooks the(8 more words not shown)
- CIt takes a(19 more words not shown)
- DIt fails to(18 more words not shown)
- EIt fails to(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Would a structured activity really prevent a child from developing? Imagine a parent setting up a chess lesson instead of handing over a box of building blocks and letting the child invent something. The activities offer different experiences, but we still need to ask what each one teaches.
The author's answer is an analogy: thoroughly structured play is like telling a novelist exactly what the plot and characters must be. I'm not immediately convinced. Couldn't someone write a good novel within a supplied structure? And even if that arrangement usually produced a bad novel, is writing a novel sufficiently similar to raising a child?
What we’re looking for
Those are the concerns I'd carry into the flaw question: whether the comparison works and whether the supposedly bad result even follows on the novel side. Let's see which problem the choices actually identify, rather than insisting that the answer use the precise objection I first thought of.
Working the answers
- A
The author doesn't argue that an activity must be limited to one successful goal. That would sound like “This helps children learn chess, so it cannot also help them learn anything else.” Here, the author argues from the proposed effect of rigid structure to a claim about development. A describes a different move.
- B
Children could enjoy the organized activities whether or not those activities promoted cognitive development. Enjoyment isn't the outcome the author denies. We would need a connection between enjoying the activity and the developmental benefit, not merely the possibility that children like it.
- C
The argument doesn't identify a requirement for creativity and then treat satisfying that requirement as a guarantee of creativity. It uses a comparison with writing a novel. The required-versus-enough description in C doesn't capture that reasoning.
- D
Writing a good novel might require other abilities too, but adding to the list of writing skills doesn't identify why the claim about children's cognitive development fails. The novel serves as a comparison; the conclusion concerns the children's development. D doesn't connect its additional requirements to that conclusion.
- ECorrect
This catches a shift I hadn't pinned down in my initial objections. The parents' belief concerns overall cognitive development. The author responds as though failing to develop creativity and resourcefulness settles that broader issue.
What if structured activities improve a child's math skills without making the child more creative? That could still be cognitive development. Even if we granted the author's point about creativity, the conclusion would need more: a reason that no other part of the child's thinking could benefit. The argument treats one kind of development as though it covered the whole question.
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