Q13 - Several three year olds who had

[allgood79]

Why is A wrong? And if I could get an explanation as to why B is wrong and E is correct. The word "words" is what threw me off.

[Favbe]

For these questions I like to look at the argument as a whole and not "touch" them (weaken, strengthen it, etc..). I just look at what the situation is.

The stimulus is just about children who had trouble remembering their phone number even though they were familiar with the names of the numbers. The teacher then taught them a song and then by the end of the day they could remember their phone numbers.

This is what the stimulus is to me in a nutshell.

(A) is wrong because the stimulus did not discuss what children cannot learn without the aid of something. There was no way I could infer that from my paraphrasing of the situation. The stimulus didn't say something like "If it wasn't for these songs, then children cannot learn them".

It is also wrong because the children aren't trying to learn the songs but to remember their telephone #.

(B) is wrong because the stimulus didn't discuss "knowing the words used to express it". I mean arguably you can sum up the stimulus in Q13 in one sentence; children learned and were familiar with the names of digits but could not remember their phone number and so a teacher taught them a song to remember it and by the end of the day they remember their phone number.

(E) is correct because it goes into place and is supported by the entire stimulus. This was what the whole situation was about essentially.

[maryadkins]

The stimulus is just about children who had trouble remembering their phone number even though they were familiar with the names of the numbers. The teacher then taught them a song and then by the end of the day they could remember their phone numbers.

This is what the stimulus is to me in a nutshell.

Yep! Great.

(A) is wrong because we don't know that they couldn't possibly have learned their numbers without the songs. Just because they DID learn them with the songs doesn't mean that was the only conceivable way, ever.

(B) is the opposite of what happened. They knew the names of the digits.

(C) is like (A). We don't know they're better than any other method just because they worked.

(D) is out of scope. We know they could count, but we don't know if they knew the meaning of the numbers. We also want something referencing the songs.

(E) does! And not in an extreme way. Perfect.

[ttunden]

I can see why the answer is E. It is soft and provable but my main concern and why I eliminated it during the test is because I just didn't like how it says "familiar words."

The stimulus says the songs helped the children remember their telephone numbers. Never said anything about words.

Your thoughts?

[christine.defenbaugh]

Interesting point, ttunden!

The key phrase in the stimulus that would have helped here is that "each child was familiar with the names of all the digits". Remember that numbers are also words, and the stimulus is telling us that the child is familiar with both the meaning (learning to count) and the words for the numbers themselves (the names of the digits). So, when (E) talks about "familiar words", it's referring to those familiar digit names!

In other words, if the children remembered their phone numbers, then they remembered the order of the words-that-are-digit-names!

Does that help?