PT,34,S2,Q10 Although the charter of Westside

[joseph1826]

Can you please explain your approach and why B" is wrong?

Thank you,

Joe

[aileenann]

This question asks us to add a new assumption/new piece of information to the premises already given to reach the conclusion of the argument. That conclusion is: "The school is currently in violation of its charter."

In a question like this, it often helps to identify what might be an assumption of the argument (something that is not stated that needs to be true for the argument to work) - that assumption should be the answer. Let's look at the premises we have. The author tells us that the Westside School (WS) has to enroll students with special needs (SN). They also tell us that there are no students with learning disabilities (LD) and finds that this means they must be violating their charter.

Since we know only one thing about the charter, our attention necessary goes to the question of whether WS is fulfilling its requirement with respect to SN students. But does SN=LD? Isn't it possible that some students with SN don't have LD? There could be other kinds of SN - maybe physical or emotional? This may seem like I'm bringing in outside knowledge, but I'm not. I'm mostly just thinking that since the premises didn't tell met hat SN=LD, I would be wrong to assume that they are the same. However, doesn't the author seem to be treating these as the same?

For an analogous argument, what if I were to say. My high school clique has to have an athlete to be a cool clique. But my high school clique doesn't have any lacrosse players, therefore it is not a cool clique. This argument is making a very similar assumption - do you see what it is?

Answer choice (D) gets right at this assumption by saying that any student with SN necessarily also has LD. This is not the same as what I had anticipated (that SN =LD), but it is the same for logical purposes, mainly saying that when there are no LD students there are no SN students. Bingo!

So why is answer choice (B) incorrect? I would say there are two reasons. First, (B) restates a premise - we already know that there are no students with LD in the school at present. If it is explicitly stated already, it won't help us to restate it or to assume it. Another reason (B) is incorrect is that it doesn't address the charter requirement. Remember, the charter is about SN not LD. Therefore, we probably need an assumption that involves SN on some level.

I hope this helps!

[joseph1826]

Yes, it was very helpful. I understand now. With assumptions questions, do you recommend diagraming?

Thank you,

Joe

[noah]

Diagramming LR is a big issue. Too many student over-diagram. For assumption questions that involve a lot of conditional logic, it's often useful to diagram. For those that you can simply "get", reading like a debater and focusing on wrong answer choices is usually faster and more effective if you know how to do that.

BTW, these posts are in the wrong forum -- they're for PT 34, not 56. I'll move them later.