Q18 - In a study in which secondary school students were ask

[rdown2b]

Can someone help explain E not C?

[demetri.blaisdell]

Let’s start with the stimulus. 20% of the population has some desirable personality trait (let’s call it likeability), but only 5% of teachers do. Therefore, people with this likeability trait are being discouraged in some way from becoming teachers.

For a weaken question like this one, we need to first identify the gap. Is there some other explanation for a lower-than-expected percentage of likeable people who teach? What if these likeable people tend to go in to politics? Or maybe they are more susceptible to some disease and die younger (implausible, I know). The point is that we’re looking for an explanation for the discrepancy identified above other than things that would discourage prospective likeable teachers from entering the profession.

We find this in (E). If likeable teachers are more likely to quit teaching than other teachers, this could explain why there are relatively few. It provides a different way of explaining the difference that does not involve them being discouraged from entering the profession. Rather, they tend to leave it earlier than other teachers.

(A) neither strengthens nor weakens the argument. Maybe all the likeable people are becoming lawyers (talk about implausible!). That wouldn’t affect the idea that they are being discouraged from becoming teachers.
(B) also neither strengthens nor weakens. The conclusion says that something is discouraging likeable people from entering the teaching profession. We have no way of knowing if that effect happens before or after college. Maybe the likeable people turn away from teaching at an early age. (B) only suggests that whatever discourages likeable people from becoming teachers occurs before college.
(C) looks at first like it strengthens the argument. If you read (C) incorrectly as saying "[Prospective teachers] with the personality type are intensely recruited for noneducational professions," it would strengthen the argument that something is discouraging these people from becoming teachers (the intense recruiting). (C) actually says that students of likeable teachers are intensely recruited. We have no way of knowing if these students are likeable or not or if they were ever going to become teachers. Good from afar, but far from good.
(D) is out of scope. We’re concerned with why these likeable people don’t become teachers. We are not interested in whether or not they are liked by other teachers.

I hope that explanation of (C) clears up your confusion. This answer choice was wrong for two reasons: it referred to the wrong group (students of likeable teachers) and it would actually have strengthened the argument (if it had referred to prospective teachers). Let me know if you have any questions about this.

Demetri