Q8 - The director of a secondary

[coco.wu1993]

I picked B over C. My reasoning is if B stands, it is sufficient to reach the conclusion that the prohibition would ensure that such students would do well academically, while certainly B is not required. C is required by the argument, but it is insufficient to lead to the conclusion.

I have a general question concerning this type of Flaw question, "the author fails to establish that". Should the author fail to establish a sufficient or necessary condition? I guess it should be a necessary one.

[maryadkins]

A committee found that students having academic problems were doing too little studying and playing a lot of sports
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Director prohibits them from playing sports, saying this will ensure they do well academically

What's the problem here? We don't know if the sports are what's making them struggle in the classroom! It's a class correlation-causation issue. Maybe the sports are helping them, and it's the too little studying that's the problem (assumption #2: that it's the sports time that's causing the too-little studying).

So the director fails to establish that:

(A) is not quite on point. We're not worried about students who don't have academic problems.

(B) is too extreme. He doesn't need to establish that ALL students who do well don't participate in sports, just that these don't.

(C) Yes! He never establishing this link for these students.

(D) again, like (A), we're not worried about students who do well already.

(E) way out of scope.

As for your GREAT question:

I have a general question concerning this type of Flaw question, "the author fails to establish that". Should the author fail to establish a sufficient or necessary condition? I guess it should be a necessary one.

YES! Exactly. The author fails to establish a necessary condition. If there is a sufficient answer choice that goes above and beyond what the argument needs, like (B) does here, then it's not a flaw that it wasn't established, right? It isn't necessary! Great job.

[Mab6q]

Is this really a causation correlation issue? The committee tells us that they were having academic problems because they spent large amounts of time on sports and too little time studying.

I understand why B is the correct answer, I'm just curious as to whether or not we can take that premise as establishing a causal claim.

Thanks.

[maryadkins]

Really good question, thanks. So the premise establishes causation in the sense that the committee reported that the problems were due to two things that aren't necessarily related:

-Too much time doing sports
-Too little time studying

What the committee didn't figure out was any link between them—that playing sports is why they are studying less. That's the causal assumption that both the committee and the director make. In other words, even if the committee is right and one reason why they are having problems is because they're spending too much time doing sports, maybe that's because they're exhausted or something, or dehydrated.

[Mab6q]

Really good question, thanks. So the premise establishes causation in the sense that the committee reported that the problems were due to two things that aren't necessarily related:

-Too much time doing sports
-Too little time studying

What the committee didn't figure out was any link between them—that playing sports is why they are studying less. That's the causal assumption that both the committee and the director make. In other words, even if the committee is right and one reason why they are having problems is because they're spending too much time doing sports, maybe that's because they're exhausted or something, or dehydrated.

Thanks for that explanation! So basically the premise didn't actually establish that causal relationship, but it was assumed but the author. However, if we are given a causal relationship in the premise, we should take it to be true, right?

Does that occur often, because I don't recall seeing a question where it has?

Thanks Mary!

[maryadkins]

YES! If you see causation in a premise, you take it as true.

It does occur sometimes.

So if I said:

Rain causes cancer. Therefore, cancer can be cured with umbrellas.

That means: You don't question whether rain causes cancer. You accept it as true. The assumption is not going to be the causation between rain and cancer, but between umbrellas and curing it.