Q6 - Patti: Most parents are eager

[rbolden]

What role does the sentence "Because children have a natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge, they learn an enormous amount simply through growing and adapting to the world" play in the argument?

Here is my thought process for this question:

Premise: (a) instead of providing general opportunities for their children to learn, parents often direct their children’s learning to their own personal concerns. (b) because children have a natural curiosity, they learn an enormous amount simply through growing and adapting to the world.

Conclusion: This type of directed learning is unlikely to improve a child’s preschool education.

Assumption : Directed learning (children learning through their own parents' personal concerns) is not required to improve preschool education. (directed learning and preschool education are mutually exclusive).

Answer choice D is the closest to the assumption that I came up with....but I have to assume that the necessary part of the process of growing and adapting to the world is equal to preschool education. Is this thought process okay?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Question Type: Necessary Assumption

The argument concludes that directed learning that focuses on the parent’s personal concerns is unlikely to improve a child’s preschool education. Why? Because children learn by growing and adapting to the world.

Correct Answer
This argument assumes that growing and adapting to the world does not involve learning that is focused on the parent’s personal concerns _ best expressed in answer choice (D).

Incorrect Answers
(A) might explain why the directed learning will not lead to improving a child’s preschool education, but is not the only possible explanation and so is not necessary to the argument’s reasoning.
(B) undermines the conclusion by suggesting that the parent’s direction is helpful, not an obstacle.
(C) undermines the argument by suggesting that the parent’s direction is helpful, not an obstacle.
(E) is irrelevant. While those opportunities to learn are not typical, if they are sometimes present, we need to know why this form of directed learning will not lead to improving a child’s preschool education.

[WaltGrace1983]

When under the pressure of time, I had a tough time with this question. I think the reason is because B and D both had such great vocabulary in them and key words. C looked pretty good too. A and E were virtually an automatic elimination. I wrote out an explanation to help myself out with my own thought process but pretty much everything that goes on my computer goes here so I hope this will help someone out along the way!

"Children learn a lot simply growing and adapting to the world
-->
Directed learning imposed upon by the parents will likely not improve the preschooler's education"
"Question Type: Necessary Assumption

My Thought Process: This argument is saying that directed learning will not HELP a preschooler's education. The reasons given are that these children learn enough on their own. However, couldn't it be the case that this type of directed learning is an ESSENTIAL part of the world? If it is, this would make the conclusion void. This is assuming that there are two spheres of learning: one sphere is that which the child naturally inherits. This sphere is the only where they learn almost through osmosis. The other sphere is the one imposed upon by the parents. This sphere, according to the argument, is not necessary and it will not help the child with learning. In other words, the argument is seperating these two spheres and assuming that their seperation is in fact okay.


(A) Whoooooa. Where did THAT come from? Remember, this is a necessary assumption question. Think to yourself, "do we NEED to assume this?...If we get rid of this is our argument still valid?" The answer to this is that the argument would absolutely be valid without this. We don't need to know what parents have been exposed to. We need to keep our focus and eliminate this.

(B) "Tempting! It has a lot of great vocabulary in it! Wait. This is the OPPOSITE of what we want! If we take this as true (which if its an N.A. question we absolutely must) then, not only will this destabilize the conclusion by showing that directed learning does indeed help, but it will make directed learning almost necessary! If children will have a tough time adapting to the world without their parents' then maybe these children need what their parents impose on them. If we take the opposite of this statement ""Children will NOT have difficulty..."" it actually helps the argument. We got it all backwards here - (B) is an opposite.

There is another problem too though, since when does ""unique help and guidance"" equate to ""direct learning?"" It may not! Watch out for this!

(C) Totally wrong. If we accept this as true then this really hurts the argument. The conclusion says that "directed learning is unlikely to improve a child's education" while this is saying that "direct learning is likely to enhance general opportunities to learn." That sounds like contradictory statements to me. Thus, this answer choice hurts the argument rather than existing as a statement this argument depends on.

(D) "Correct. Let's look at the opposite statement of this and put it in the argument:

Children learn a lot simply growing and adapting to the world
""Direct learning IS a necessary part of the process of growing and adapting to the world""
-->
Directed learning imposed upon by the parents will likely not improve the preschooler's education

Look at how contradictory that is! If we take the negation of the answer choice and stack it up against the argument, the negated answer choice will actually completely destroy the argument while, when we leave the answer choice as is and stack it in, it goes along with the argument (and usually helps it out a bit). The fact that the negation of this answer choice looks so terrible tells us that this assumption is necessary. Also, we can analyze it in another way:

Children learn a lot simply growing and adapting to the world
""Direct learning is not a necessary part of the process of growing and adapting to the world""
-->
Directed learning imposed upon by the parents will likely not improve the preschooler's education

The answer choice is saying that directed learning is not a necessary part. If we take this is as true then we can easily see why directed learning wont have much of an impact of the education of preschooler's. This answer choice is perfect and it is exactly what we prephrased."

(E) Out of scope. What if they aren't typical or are typical? The point is they EXIST and that is all that matters.

[bbox]

what's the argument core found here?

[tommywallach]

Walt shows it at the top of his post.