#16 - The current proposal to give college students a

[reop6780]

Answer A - how is it avoiding the issue?

That is, how do we know the stimulus does not avoid the issue?

The claim made in the stimuli is to abandon the proposal to give college students choices in planning courses.

Don't the bad examples of the students who support the current proposal support his/her claim?

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Hyun,

First, go back and take a look at the description of a Source Argument in the Flaw chapter. The author starts out by saying the proposal should be abandoned. But does the rest of the argument talk about the proposal? No, it focuses on the supporters. That's where the "it avoids the issue" portion comes from

Does that help make that clear? Please let me know. Thanks!

[reop6780]

Thank you for citing LR Bible ! (I love it when I find the clue in LR bible ).

It helped me a lot!

[andriana.caban]

Hi!

Can you please explain why (C) is incorrect?

I picked (C) because I assumed the author was using an arbitrary definition of the word satisfied. How can he/she assume that students will NEVER be SATISFIED? How does the author measure satisfaction? Are the criterion that follow the sentence, "reaching 3rd year without declaring a major, indifference to grades..etc" be a measure of satisfaction?

I thought (A) was wrong on the grounds that it didn't avoid the issue because the authors argument was that the proposal should be abandoned because students will never be satisfied with the proposal? Or, is it a flaw on the authors part in only focusing on students who support the proposal RATHER THAN the student body in general.

Thanks!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Andriana,

I can see a couple problems here in your evaluation of answer choice C. First, you said that you "assumed the author was using an arbitrary definition of the word satisfied." But "using an arbitrary definition" of a term is a different problem than "fail[ing] to define the term," which is what answer choice C actually says. Also, don't assume a meaning (especially an arbitrary one!) applies in an argument, unless you have textual evidence that what you are assuming is what the author actually means. If the author doesn't tell you the meaning of the term, you don't have any evidence to assume that the usage of the term is arbitrary.

There's a bigger problem with answer choice C, though. The term "satisfied" is not a "critical" term in the argument. A critical term is one that provides a crucial part of the support for the conclusion. Here, the premises about some students' levels of satisfaction with the ultimate course-planning system are not especially relevant for determining whether the proposal should be undertaken or not. Thus, those premises, and the terms used in articulating those premises, are not "critical."

I'll refer you back to Dave's great answer for why answer choice A is correct here: the conclusion is about the proposal, and the premises don't talk about the proposal itself (what does it say, how will it work, what will its educational outcomes be). It may be true that the reaction of some students to the proposal is one very minor issue related to the proposal (one very small element of the outcomes of the proposal). But even still, as you note, there are many other issues to consider with the proposal (the ones I mentioned, plus the one you noted--other students' satisfaction), and the argument avoids them all (thus generally avoiding "the issue").

I hope this helps!

Jeremy