MGMAT CAT CR question - School Financing

[pardhiv]

For years, the debate over public education reform has centered on financing. Many claim that pouring more money into the public schools will improve student performance. However, the only way to fix our school systems is to inject new ideas and new approaches. Today the schools are organized to benefit their adult employees rather than the students.

Which of the following, if true, most weakens the argument?

Schools that have instituted "new approaches" attract the best performing students.

Schools without outside playgrounds have lower levels of student performance than schools that do.

Studies show that student performance corresponded most directly with the education of the students’ families.

School employees, by an overwhelming margin, said that the system performed well.

Researchers in education have shown that students from school districts with high per-capita spending tend to receive higher scores on standardized tests.

The answer to this question is given as E.
The assumption underlying this answer is that standardized test scores are indicators of student performance. Although this is true in real world, can we make such an assumption when standardizes test scores are not mentioned in the question?

[chunyang.yu]

Post subject: MGMAT CAT CR question - School Financing
For years, the debate over public education reform has centered on financing. Many claim that pouring more money into the public schools will improve student performance. However, the only way to fix our school systems is to inject new ideas and new approaches. Today the schools are organized to benefit their adult employees rather than the students.

Which of the following, if true, most weakens the argument?.

the conclusion of the argument is that today schools are not organized to benefit students.

the question is to weaken the conclusion, so we need a statement that can show schools are organized to benefit students.

Schools that have instituted "new approaches" attract the best performing students.

this is unrelated, since no conclusion can be drawn from this sentence whether schools are organized to benefit students.

Schools without outside playgrounds have lower levels of student performance than schools that do.

there is new comparison, not mentioned.

Studies show that student performance corresponded most directly with the education of the students’ families.

not related

School employees, by an overwhelming margin, said that the system performed well.

it is probably that schools are organized to benefit employees, not weaken

Researchers in education have shown that students from school districts with high per-capita spending tend to receive higher scores on standardized tests

Only E shows that students' performance get improved, thus weakened the conclusion of the argument.

[mschwrtz]

chunyang.yu, I like your approach. It usually is more efficient to move from wrong to right with CR questions, rather than to try to anticipate the correct answer. But I'm going to take a different approach for this particular question, for reasons I'll explain.

First, the conclusion of this argument is "the only way to fix our school systems is to inject new ideas and new approaches."

Apply the THEREFORE test to choose between the two candidates:

the only way to fix our school systems is to inject new ideas and new approaches
THEREFORE
today the schools are organized to benefit their adult employees rather than the students

No, that doesn't make sense.

today the schools are organized to benefit their adult employees rather than the students
THEREFORE
the only way to fix our school systems is to inject new ideas and new approaches

Yes, that makes better sense.

Here are a few other hints that this is the conclusion:
-It follows the word "However." This is not perfectly reliable, but a very common argument structure is COUNTER-PREMISE, BUT CONCLUSION, PREMISE.
-It contains the word "only." Again, this is not perfectly reliable, but one type of argument includes superlatives or words such as "must" or "only" in the conclusion.
-It's an opinion, but of course so is the claim that "today the schools are organized to benefit their adult employees rather than the students."

It's very difficult to anticipate an answer to a CR question; in fact, it's often counter-productive to try. In this case, though, the conclusion has the word "only," so there's a pretty fair chance that the best way to weaken the argument is to propose an alternative path to the same end, that is, another way to improve school performance.

It turns out that E goes one better. E proposes that spending more money, the very method disdained by the argument, may actually work.

OK, how about our S/W/- chart?

A- (this would weaken an entirely different sort of argument, one such as "new ideas schools have better performance-->the new ideas must lead to better performance)
B s?w? (if outside playgrounds are a new idea, then this strengthens a bit; if they cost money then this weakens a bit)
C - (so schools don't make as much difference as we'd like to think?)
D -
E W (spending money does make a difference! maybe)

[vijaykumar.kondepudi]

Hi,
I am still not conviced with the answer choice:

E: Researchers in education have shown that students from school districts with high per-capita spending tend to receive higher scores on standardized tests.

Reason:
High per-capita spending doesn't imply increased spending on Education. There could be various other things on which there is an increased spending, such as Standard of living etc.
And as mentioned earlier, in the first post, Higher scores on standardized tests in no indication of improved student performance (Though real world plausible).

Why is the Answer choice "C" incorrect?

C: Studies show that student performance corresponded most directly with the education of the students’ families.

In this case we identify another cause which determines student's performance. As per studies, it's parents education which determines the students performance.
Purely based on the argument, parents need to be educated to guide the students properly.
This is in accordance to the following structure..
X doesn't cause Y, but Z causes Y and therefore Weekens the "X causes Y" argument.

Please clarify.

[tim]

The problem with C is very clearly exposed by your wording: you claim parents "need" to be educated, which is definitely not what C is saying. If C created that necessity then it would be a more attractive choice. On the other hand E does exactly what it needs to in weakening the argument. The argument claimed that money was not the issue, and E suggests that money may in fact be the issue..

[duyng9989]

The problem with C is very clearly exposed by your wording: you claim parents "need" to be educated, which is definitely not what C is saying. If C created that necessity then it would be a more attractive choice. On the other hand E does exactly what it needs to in weakening the argument. The argument claimed that money was not the issue, and E suggests that money may in fact be the issue..

I agree with the post previous of yours. We need additional assumption to make E become an attractive choice: money is spend on education.

In C it said that neither money nor new approach is the issue => it weaken the argument. Additionally, in E, I think it is a false causal relationship. We see a high correlation between high money spending and high student's performance. But it does not mean that high money spending leads to high student's performance. Might be something else (quite a common fallacy)

Tim, it seems in your argument that money must be the issue for better student's performance. It is not convincing.

Please help

[tim]

No, I definitely didn't say money MUST be the issue. Please take a closer look at what I said and the broader context of the problem. Your analysis makes it look like you are assessing causal relationships, which is most certainly not the appropriate way to address an assumptions question of this type.

[duyng9989]

No, I definitely didn't say money MUST be the issue. Please take a closer look at what I said and the broader context of the problem. Your analysis makes it look like you are assessing causal relationships, which is most certainly not the appropriate way to address an assumptions question of this type.

Two things:
1.

The argument claimed that money was not the issue, and E suggests that money may in fact be the issue.

you did not say money MUST be the issue but you IMPLIES that answer choice E suggests that money may in fact be the issue.

2. causal relationship is the appropriate way to address the assumptions question. For example:

A causes B. What is the assumption?: Not C causes B.

I think that you do not follow my reasoning. Your reply is not satisfactory.

Thanks.

[jnelson0612]

duyng, try to look at it this way:
For years, the debate over public education reform has centered on financing. Many claim that pouring more money into the public schools will improve student performance. However, the only way to fix our school systems is to inject new ideas and new approaches. Today the schools are organized to benefit their adult employees rather than the students.

Conclusion: The only way to fix our school systems is to inject new ideas and approaches.
WHY?
Premise: Today the schools are organized to benefit their adult employees rather than their students.
Assumption: There is NO OTHER way to fix the school systems other than to inject new idea and approaches.

A good weaken answer will challenge that assumption. That is what answer choice E) does. It shows that there may be a way to get the school performing better aside from injecting new ideas and approaches. It shows that in schools with higher spending there is higher student performance.

Don't worry about the correlation/causation issue; just identify the assumption and look at which one gives it the most opposition.