#6 - Patti: Most parents are eager for their preschoolers to

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (D)

When faced with a stimulus as wordy as this one, it is important to keep in mind that your first goal is to break the argument down into premises and conclusions, leaving out any unnecessary details. Essentially, the author is trying to defend the proposition that directed learning is unlikely to improve a child's preschool education. Why? Because children learn an enormous amount through growing and adapting to the world, whereas parents often direct their children's learning to their own personal concerns.

Even if true, the author's premises provide limited support to her conclusion. What if parental guidance and direction played an important role in helping children grow and adapt to the world? Indeed, the conclusion only follows if we assume that directed learning plays no such role.

Answer choice (A): While this answer choice might strengthen the argument by explaining why parents use the type of directed learning in question, such an explanation is by no means assumed by the author. Even if the reasons for such parental practices were different, the conclusion would still hold. This answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (B): This answer choice weakens the argument by suggesting that parental guidance helps children adapt to the world. Because this is exactly the opposite of what we need, this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (C): This answer choice also weakens the argument by proposing that directed learning has a beneficial effect on children's education.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. As discussed earlier, the argument assumes that directed learning plays little role in the process of growing and adapting to the world. Try the Assumption Negation technique: what if such learning were a necessary part of this process? This would seriously weaken the conclusion. Therefore, answer choice (D) is correct.

Answer choice (E): It is entirely irrelevant to the conclusion whether general opportunities to learn are typical of the early years of formal education. This answer choice is incorrect.

[LSATQUEEN180]

(could someone from powerscore interpret what I just wrote and give me comprehensive feedback. I struggle with this question type and now you can see my thought process when dealing with it. if you could tell me where I went wrong, how to approach it better, I would appreciate it).

This is a necessary assumption question, and the goal here is to find an answer choice that is necessary for the argument to be true. because we know this is an argument, we know that it has a conclusion.

[b find the conclusion. [/b]

p1. parents want preschooler to learn as much as possible
p2. BUT parents are not providing their children with opportunities to learn because of their personal concerns (whatever that means)
p3. children want to learn. they learn through the world
p4. direct learning is unlikely to improve Childs education.

the last sentence in the stimulus is the conclusion. but we have to realize that the conclusion also contains elements from the sentence prior. here is the full conclusion:

"through having a natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge, children learn a lot through growing and adapting to the world- this is a type of direct learning and unlikely to improve a Childs preschool education."

Think about what assumption has been made.
Is there any new information being brought up?

new information:
1. curiosity of the world
2. thirst for the world

Why is direct learning unlikely to improve a Childs education?
Assumption 1: maybe the writer is assuming that a Childs preschool education is made up solely on those experiences mentioned above.
Assumption 2: direct learning has something to do with the parents personal concern
Assumption 3: maybe there is another type of direct learning (aka the parents) that over powers the "natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge"

I will admit, I do not have a clear assumption going into the answer choices, but this is going to happen often and so to the answer choices we go. just to let you know I am keeping the conclusion in mind "through having a natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge, children learn a lot through growing and adapting to the world- this is a type of direct learning and unlikely to improve a Childs preschool education." Also, the assumptions I did come up with. On test day, if you can't think of assumptions in a couple seconds or so, I would just go to the answer choices.

"through having a natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge, children learn a lot through growing and adapting to the world- this is a type of direct learning and unlikely to improve a Childs preschool education.

A. When taking the negation: "parents who do not use the type of directed learning in question have not been exposed to misguided psychological theories about children." This destroys the conclusion completely making it the necessary.
B. this answer choice doesn't feel right
C. When doing the negation test C looks like this: "this type of directed learning in question is not likely to enhance the general opportunities for children to learn. the problem with this question is that it doesn't destroy the answer when negated, and so it can't be the necessary.
D. this is wrong because it focuses on growing and adapting to the world, rather than on the education of preschoolers.
E. this is a good answer if it said "preschool education" instead of "early years."

(could someone from power score interpret what I just wrote and give me comprehensive feedback. I struggle with this question type and now you can see my thought process when dealing with it. if you could tell me where I went wrong, how to approach it better, I would appreciate it).
_________________
So I was wrong. the answer is D. lets try negating it:

"the type of directed learning in question is a necessary part of the process of growing and adapting to the world." I actually understand why D is the right answer. I didn't apply the negation test to it when working through the choices, but reading it beside the conclusion of the argument, it clearly destroys it and has to be necessary.

Now, I chose A because if that were true that parents who use direct learning were misguided when it came to psychological theories about children, it would prove the conclusion that directed learning is unlikely to improve a Childs preschool education, right? after writing that out it hit me that maybe it is wrong because it is identifying a different type of directed learning?

I don't know.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi LSATQUEEN180,

I think I see where you went wrong, and it has to do with the initial step of analyzing/understanding the argument itself.

The key thing to understand about this argument is that it is comparing/contrasting two types learning, "general" with "directed." "General" here is talking about unstructured learning that kids get just through living and interacting in their environment, sort of like everyday life skills that kids just pick up. You can think of "directed" as structured and specific, such as "Kids, today you're going to learn long division."

You wrote, "p2. BUT parents are not providing their children with opportunities to learn because of their personal concerns (whatever that means)"

In this premise, it's important to note that parents aren't providing general opportunities. The word "general," which you left out of your description is actually very important.

Now the second half of that premise states that instead of providing those general learning opportunities, "parents often direct their children's learning to their personal concerns." Here, the word "direct" is very important because this is the "directed learning" being referred to in the conclusion. In other words, what this premise is basically saying is that, instead of letting kids learn on their own in a general way, that parents are directing what their kids learn based on their own personal concerns. For example, if the parents want their kid to become a doctor someday, they may start teaching them biology or anatomy.

Now the third sentence, discussing how children "learn an enormous amount simply through growing and adapting to the world" is referring to "general" learning here. Learning through growing and adapting to the world is what general learning means in this argument.

Patti, the author of the argument, is in favor of general learning and not a fan of directed learning.

So when the conclusion states "this type of directed learning" it is not referring to the sentence immediately before it, it is referring to the second half of the second sentence describing how parents often direct their kid's learning to their own personal concerns.

In other words, the author is basically saying that children learn so much through general learning, that this other type of learning (directed) is unlikely to improve the child's pre-school education.

Hopefully, this helps things clear up!