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- Sat Apr 09, 2016 9:04 am
#22879
Complete Question Explanation
Strengthen. The correct answer choice is (E)
As with all Strengthen questions, begin by isolating the conclusion of the argument: university education should emphasize the liberal arts rather than the more narrow kind of technical training. Why? Because such education allows us to adapt to new intellectual challenges, which leads to better performance on jobs for which we have no formal training. For the sake of her argument, the author assumes that making students employable is the primary purpose of university education: do not attack her conclusion by arguing that it is not.
The structure of the argument is as follows:
Premise #1: Liberal arts education fosters the kind of reasoning skills that allow us to adapt to new challenges.
Sub-conclusion #1a: Liberal arts education allows us to perform jobs for which we have no specialized training (this follows from Premise #1 and in turn supports the main conclusion of the argument).
Premise #2: The primary purpose of university education is to make students employable.
Main conclusion: Education should emphasize the liberal arts.
As with all logical reasoning questions in the Strengthen family, you should first attack the stimulus by looking for possible ways to break the chain between the premises, sub-conclusion and conclusion of the argument. The correct answer to a Strenghten question will close these gaps. For instance, what if technical training were equally capable of fostering reasoning skills? Or perhaps reasoning skills are not uniquely capable of allowing us to adapt to new intellectual challenges? Maybe adaptability is less important to our ability to perform jobs for which we have no specialized training than are other qualities such as maturity, leadership and work ethic? Any of these ideas can potentially weaken the author's conclusion by exposing possible gaps in her reasoning. You should therefore look for an answer suggesting that they are not, in fact, true.
Answer choice (A): The author acknowledges that the primary purpose of education is employability and argues that liberal arts education is uniquely capable of achieving this goal. Even if education were more important than finding a job, this does not strengthen the author's argument.
Answer choice (B): This answer choice does the exact opposite of what is needed: it weakens the argument by pointing out that many people with narrow technical training manage to find jobs. Beware of decoy answers of this type.
Answer choice (C): Nowhere does the author mention that liberal arts education leads to having a series of different jobs: it merely allows us to perform jobs for which we have no specialized training. Furthermore, how interesting one's job is has little relevance to the argument at hand.
Answer choice (D): This is a Shell Game answer, which occurs when an idea or concept is raised in the stimulus and then a very similar idea appears in the answer choice, but the idea is changed just enough to be incorrect but still attractive. Here we are tempted to make the leap between liberal arts education and having a "general understanding of life." There is no reason to suspect that one leads to the other. Because having a general understanding of life is irrelevant to the author's argument, this answer choice does not fill in any of the gaps between the premises and the conclusion and is incorrect.
Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. If technical training does not help students acquire reasoning skills, it is less likely to help them adapt to new intellectual challenges and perform jobs for which they have no specialized training. Consequently, liberal arts education might be better suited for achieving this particular goal.
Strengthen. The correct answer choice is (E)
As with all Strengthen questions, begin by isolating the conclusion of the argument: university education should emphasize the liberal arts rather than the more narrow kind of technical training. Why? Because such education allows us to adapt to new intellectual challenges, which leads to better performance on jobs for which we have no formal training. For the sake of her argument, the author assumes that making students employable is the primary purpose of university education: do not attack her conclusion by arguing that it is not.
The structure of the argument is as follows:
Premise #1: Liberal arts education fosters the kind of reasoning skills that allow us to adapt to new challenges.
Sub-conclusion #1a: Liberal arts education allows us to perform jobs for which we have no specialized training (this follows from Premise #1 and in turn supports the main conclusion of the argument).
Premise #2: The primary purpose of university education is to make students employable.
Main conclusion: Education should emphasize the liberal arts.
As with all logical reasoning questions in the Strengthen family, you should first attack the stimulus by looking for possible ways to break the chain between the premises, sub-conclusion and conclusion of the argument. The correct answer to a Strenghten question will close these gaps. For instance, what if technical training were equally capable of fostering reasoning skills? Or perhaps reasoning skills are not uniquely capable of allowing us to adapt to new intellectual challenges? Maybe adaptability is less important to our ability to perform jobs for which we have no specialized training than are other qualities such as maturity, leadership and work ethic? Any of these ideas can potentially weaken the author's conclusion by exposing possible gaps in her reasoning. You should therefore look for an answer suggesting that they are not, in fact, true.
Answer choice (A): The author acknowledges that the primary purpose of education is employability and argues that liberal arts education is uniquely capable of achieving this goal. Even if education were more important than finding a job, this does not strengthen the author's argument.
Answer choice (B): This answer choice does the exact opposite of what is needed: it weakens the argument by pointing out that many people with narrow technical training manage to find jobs. Beware of decoy answers of this type.
Answer choice (C): Nowhere does the author mention that liberal arts education leads to having a series of different jobs: it merely allows us to perform jobs for which we have no specialized training. Furthermore, how interesting one's job is has little relevance to the argument at hand.
Answer choice (D): This is a Shell Game answer, which occurs when an idea or concept is raised in the stimulus and then a very similar idea appears in the answer choice, but the idea is changed just enough to be incorrect but still attractive. Here we are tempted to make the leap between liberal arts education and having a "general understanding of life." There is no reason to suspect that one leads to the other. Because having a general understanding of life is irrelevant to the author's argument, this answer choice does not fill in any of the gaps between the premises and the conclusion and is incorrect.
Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. If technical training does not help students acquire reasoning skills, it is less likely to help them adapt to new intellectual challenges and perform jobs for which they have no specialized training. Consequently, liberal arts education might be better suited for achieving this particular goal.