- Tue Aug 14, 2018 4:56 pm
#49546
The educators' argue that it is better for students to learn basic subject matter in depth. They tell us that students who have learned the fundamentals of a subject matter in depth will more easily be able to understand "the breadth of that subject" later on.
The educators also compare this method to teaching students "a lot of factual information," but without a lot of depth to that information. Teaching students this latter way does not equip them to study well on their own later on.
The question stem asks us to use the reasoning in the stimulus to prove one of the following statements in the answer choices. This is a Must Be True question.
Constructing a prephrase for this question is a bit difficult, as there is no obvious single inference that we can draw from the argument. It may be helpful to restate or summarize the argument such as "a student who learns the basics in depth will do better with later material in that subject."
Regardless of what sort of prephrase you constructed, we can use the Fact Test to eliminate the incorrect answer choices. Remember that any answer choice that makes claims not supported by the stimulus will be incorrect.
Answer choice (A) states that it is easier to understand how organisms are classified after one learns how those organisms can be useful. This answer choice discuss ease of learning, which was a topic discussed in the educators' argument. However, this answer states that future learning is aided by knowing how something "can be useful." Utility was never discussed in the stimulus, nor can we infer utility from anything in the stimulus, so this answer choice fails the fact test.
Answer choice (D) also discusses ease of future understanding. In this case we are dealing with Greek tragedy. Since the educators discussed school subjects, and tragedy is often taught in literature classes, we can apply their argument to this topic. This answer choice tells us that it is easier to understand Greek tragedies after one has first "analyzed a few of them in detail."
This statement is perfectly supported by the educators' argument. As LSAT2018 wrote above, the educators told us that it is easier to understand any subject after learning a little of it in detail. The educators' general argument can be applied to this specific instance of someone learning about a few Greek tragedies in detail.
