PrepTest 139, Section 1, Question 11
Editor: When asked to name a poet contemporaneous(59 more words not shown)
The statement that the majority(11 more words not shown)
- Aas evidence that(14 more words not shown)
- Bas evidence of(5 more words not shown)
- Cto illustrate that(6 more words not shown)
- Das evidence that(13 more words not shown)
- Eas evidence that(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Does missing one poetry question show that your education is deeply flawed?
“Contemporaneous with Shakespeare” means living at the same time as Shakespeare. A student might understand that instruction but not know any poets from the period. Or the student might know the poets but not understand “contemporaneous.” The result doesn't tell us which difficulty explains the answers.
The editor acknowledges that uncertainty and then says either explanation reveals a deep educational problem. That's the leap I'd question. Someone might read well, understand mathematics and science, and still miss this particular vocabulary word or know little about older poets. We haven't been shown why this gap makes the whole educational system deeply wrong.
What we’re looking for
The question asks what role the survey result plays. Find the claim the editor wants it to support: the educational system has a serious problem. The 60 percent result is evidence offered for that conclusion. We can identify what the evidence is supposed to establish even while questioning whether it establishes it.
Working the answers
- A
Ignorance of poetry history is only one explanation the editor considers. The editor explicitly leaves open whether the students instead misunderstood a word. The argument's broader conclusion is about the educational system, not a settled diagnosis that the students don't know poetry history.
- B
Difficulty interpreting the answers doesn't necessarily make the question ambiguous. Students could misunderstand a question with a clear meaning. In any event, the editor's main point concerns education, not demonstrating that some questions have multiple meanings.
- C
The editor concedes that this result is hard to interpret. But the survey isn't introduced mainly to teach a lesson about research interpretation. The editor says that despite that uncertainty, either explanation supports a criticism of education. C stops at the concession and misses the larger use of the result.
- D
The editor does draw a conclusion despite uncertainty about the data. That isn't the same as arguing for a general rule that ambiguous data shouldn't stop us from drawing conclusions. The result serves the specific claim about the educational system, not a broader methodological recommendation.
- ECorrect
The editor uses the students' answers as evidence that something is deeply wrong with the educational system. Not knowing poets of the period and not understanding the vocabulary word are offered as alternative paths to that same conclusion. E captures the survey's supporting role without pretending the editor has resolved which explanation is right.
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