#16 - Debater: As a pedagogical practice, lecturing embodies

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (D).

The question stem focuses our attention of the reply from the Respondent, so that is where we should look for the flaw in the stimulus. There we see the Respondent talking about hierarchy in education having to do with movement from simple to complex ideas. However, that is not the type of hierarchy that the Debater had been criticizing. In the Debater's argument, hierarchy was about being in a superior or inferior position rather than being peers, or equals. This is a very rare "vague or shifting use of a term" flaw, more commonly found as a wrong answer than as a correct one.

Answer choice (A): A correct answer to a Flaw question must describe something that happened in the stimulus, and that thing must be a flaw of some kind. This answer does neither - the Respondent did NOT concede a major assumption made by the Debater, and even if she had that would not be a flaw. It's okay to say "sure, you're right about one assumption or premise, but your conclusion is still incorrect."

Answer choice (B): The Respondent doesn't argue about teaching methods so much as about the structure of learning in general. Also, the author did not take for granted a similarity, but stated explicitly that all teaching has at least one thing in common, and used math as an example of that one thing. As this answer does not describe what happened in the stimulus, it is a loser.

Answer choice (C): There is no indication that the author failed to consider other weaknesses, and in any event that would not be relevant to a discussion that is only about whether hierarchy is a strength or a weakness.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. The phrase "key concept" should alert the test taker that this answer is on the right track, as "hierarchy" is a key concept that is misapplied in the Respondent's reply.

Answer choice (E): As with answer B, the author did not take for granted (assume) that math is a good example. Rather, the author explicitly stated that it is. Also, the Respondent's position is not about the "conceptual structure" of math or any other discipline, but about the hierarchical nature of learning in general, from simple ideas to more complex ones. The problem is simply that the Debater was not talking about hierarchy in that way.

[T.B.Justin]

The incorrect answer choice (C): "Fails to consider the possibility that some characteristics of lecturing other than hierarchy are weaknesses"

Would this be a flaw made in the debaters argument?

[Jay Donnell]

Hey!

I wouldn't see C as an accurate depiction of a flaw within the Debater's argument. By their reasoning, the hierarchy embedded in lecturing in regards to the teacher/student relationship is an impediment to the peer interaction in which people learn best. This then leads to the conclusion that the hierarchy involved in lecturing is a great weakness.

The conclusion is fairly specific, and has good reason behind it. We were given a reason to believe that the hierarchy aspect of lecturing has an issue and so for that reason, the hierarchy involved in lecturing is a great weakness. The Debater doesn't conclude from that one issue that lecturing as a whole, or anything grander about the education process is a weakness, simply the one component with the provided evidence to display its shortcomings.

Having one problem listed in an argument designed to show a a weakness in a certain concept does not leave the author open for criticism for failing to consider other problems with that concept. You don't need to list every single bad element of something, simply listing one problem can be used just fine in concluding that a weakness exists in that thing.

Hope that helps!

[medialaw111516]

I was torn between D & E but ultimately chose E because I couldn't figure out what made the response in the second mini passage a different aspect of education.

[Paul Marsh]

Hi Medialaw! The Debater in the stimulus is discussing hierarchy within the classroom setting, e.g. teacher vs student. The Respondent, however, is discussing hierarchy within the context of a specific subject, e.g. arithmetic vs calculus in mathematics. Thus the Respondent is taking the concept of hierarchy and moving it from the classroom to instead applying it within the context of the academic content of a specific school subject. This is what Answer Choice (D) is referring to.

Answer Choice (E) on the other hand does not describe what the Respondent is doing. If the Respondent's argument went something like, "In teaching mathematics, arithmetic must precede calculus. Therefore, all subjects and disciplines involve hierarchy and the hierarchy in lecturing is a strength," then (E) would make sense as an answer choice, because the example of mathematics would have been used as a premise for the conclusion that all disciples are similar. However, as it stands in the stimulus, a premise of the Respondent's argument (his first sentence) is that "By definition, all teaching and learning are hierarchical, for all teaching and learning must proceed from simple to complex". So he is not taking for granted that subjects are hierarchical just because math is, in fact his premise says that by definition all teaching and learning is hierarchical (he merely provides math as an example of this). So (E) does not correctly describe how the Respondent's argument functions. Hope that helps!