PrepTest 154, Section 4, Question 22
Educator: Environmental factors clearly have little effect on(55 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(8 more words not shown)
- AAthletic ability varies,(22 more words not shown)
- BSome teenagers, even(21 more words not shown)
- CAdults' enthusiasm for(20 more words not shown)
- DThe proportion of(16 more words not shown)
- ESchool programs designed(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Could a teenager's surroundings really have so little influence on playing sports? Imagine a community where families have plenty of free time for organized games, compared with one where teenagers must spend that time working. Or imagine a family that makes sports a major part of its life. Those possibilities make me question the educator's broad claim.
The first piece of evidence is that siblings can differ: one enthusiastically plays while another doesn't care. But an influence doesn't have to produce identical results in everyone. Family life could encourage both children toward sports without making both equally enthusiastic. Exceptions to a pattern don't show that there is little influence.
The second piece is that school programs aimed at inactive teenagers generally fail. Accept that too. It still doesn't settle the influence of every other feature of a teenager's environment. The author has moved from limitations of these examples to a broad conclusion about environmental factors.
What we’re looking for
For a weakener, give us evidence that surroundings do matter to teenage sports participation. We don't need to prove that the environment controls everyone's choices or that every school program works.
Working the answers
- A
Athletic ability could help explain why siblings differ, but the answer doesn't connect that ability to environmental factors. It tells us that more able teenagers participate more often. We still don't know whether their surroundings account for the ability or participation difference. This isn't evidence directly challenging the educator's conclusion.
- B
These teenagers attend schools without sports programs and are more enthusiastic about sports than their parents are. That doesn't show an environmental influence that the educator overlooked. Some teenagers bucking the apparent pattern is compatible with the educator's position. Also, being less enthusiastic than a teenager doesn't mean a parent has no enthusiasm at all.
- C
This tells us how adults' enthusiasm relates to their earlier participation. The argument concerns what influences teenagers to participate in the first place. Later adult enthusiasm doesn't identify the environmental cause of those earlier teenage choices.
- DCorrect
Large differences across societies and across decades suggest that the surrounding conditions matter. Why would teenage participation change so much with place and time if the environment had little effect? This gives us a broader pattern than the family exceptions and unsuccessful programs the educator selected.
It doesn't identify the exact environmental factor or prove that no other influences exist. It supplies evidence against dismissing environmental effects as minor, which is the task.
- E
Only a few highly successful programs is consistent with programs being generally ineffective. Their results can vary without overturning that premise. E doesn't provide the strong, broad evidence of environmental influence that D does; it largely stays within the limitation the educator already describes.
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