PrepTest 155, Section 2, Question 4
Although smaller class sizes are popular with parents(71 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(7 more words not shown)
- AReducing class size(9 more words not shown)
- BDollar for dollar,(19 more words not shown)
- CBecause reducing class(22 more words not shown)
- DReducing class size(12 more words not shown)
- EIn practice, it(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Smaller classes help a little. Does hiring and keeping better teachers help more for the same money?
That's the comparison we need. We might initially want more detail about the class-size evidence: are we comparing five students with ten, or five with fifty? But the passage gives us slight improvements, and we can accept that without conceding the final recommendation.
The author makes a sensible point about trade-offs. Giving every child a private tutor might sound appealing, but it could cost a huge amount and leave less money for other educational needs. There could also be advantages to students learning together. Saying an idea has a benefit doesn't settle whether it is the best use of limited money.
Then the author recommends recruiting and retaining better teachers. Where did we establish the return on that spending? Perhaps it produces bigger gains. Perhaps the same dollars would accomplish more by reducing class sizes. The evidence about small classes alone doesn't decide between those options.
What we’re looking for
The necessary-assumption question asks for the comparison the author is relying on: dollar for dollar, recruiting and retaining good teachers must produce larger improvements than reducing class sizes. Otherwise the stated cost-benefit standard gives us no basis for choosing the proposed policy.
Working the answers
- A
The class-size policy doesn't have to be extremely expensive. Even a cheap policy can be a worse use of money if another policy buys more improvement for the same amount. The missing comparison concerns value for the dollars spent, not whether the total expense deserves the word extremely.
- BCorrect
This supplies the missing comparison between the two uses of education dollars. If recruiting and retaining good teachers produced no larger improvement per dollar, the author couldn't use the stated cost-benefit test to favor it over class-size reductions. The conclusion relies on that advantage.
- C
Getting a proposal approved is different from showing that it uses money well. Smaller classes could be easier to sell to the public and still deliver less improvement per dollar. The argument's standard is educational benefit, not popularity at the ballot box.
- D
This combines the two policies instead of giving the author a reason to prefer one over the other. If smaller classes are the most cost-effective way to recruit and retain good teachers, spending on class-size reductions could itself be the recommended investment in teachers. The author doesn't need that claim; it creates a problem for the contrast being drawn.
- E
We don't need to assume that identifying the single best use of every education dollar is difficult. The recommendation compares these two approaches. Even if evaluating all possible policies were easy, the author would still need B's reason for favoring better-teacher efforts over smaller classes.
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