#17 - Educator: Traditional classroom education is

[lsatstudent99966]

Hi there,

Would (C) be acceptable if this were a strengthening question?

Thank you in advance!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi lsatstudent99966!

I can see how (C) might seem to strengthen it. It could connect with the idea in the second sentence of the stimulus to affirm that what happens in the traditional classroom is not a social process. Ultimately, though, there'd still be a gap between the conclusion about ineffectiveness and the premises. As I read it, in the end (C) doesn't quite address that conclusion, so it hard to see it as strengthening it. Rather, it merely restates material already in the stimulus--the first sentence already tells us that "such an environment is not truly a social process."

[lsatstudent99966]

Hi lsatstudent99966!

I can see how (C) might seem to strengthen it. It could connect with the idea in the second sentence of the stimulus to affirm that what happens in the traditional classroom is not a social process. Ultimately, though, there'd still be a gap between the conclusion about ineffectiveness and the premises. As I read it, in the end (C) doesn't quite address that conclusion, so it is hard to see it as strengthening it. Rather, it merely restates material already in the stimulus--the first sentence already tells us that "such an environment is not truly a social process."

Thank you very much Luke.

This is actually a problem that's been on my mind for a while, can I add two follow-up questions?



1. Since this is not a strengthen question, I shouldn't have chosen (C) anyway.

However, this discussion also made me think of another problem I have with identifying "premise boosters" in strengthen questions.

My problem is that sometimes the arguments in strengthen questions have multiple gaps. There is the relationship between the premise(s) and the overall conclusion in the argument that needs to be fixed, but there are also the relationships between the premise(s) and the sub-conclusion(s) in the argument that need to be fixed for the argument to be valid. I believe that an answer choice that fixes either of the relationships I mentioned would be a correct answer choice. 

But the problem is, I feel like sometimes it's not easy to tell whether I'm fixing a secondary flaw, like the flaws between a premise and a sub-conclusion (which is also a type of premise), or simply choosing a premise booster.

Using this question as an example, how do we know that choosing (C) is choosing a premise booster? Why isn't it the case that choosing (C) fixes a secondary flaw between the premise "traditional education is rigid and artificial" and the sub-conclusion "traditional education is not a social process"?

2. I used to have this concept that strengthening a premise, strengthening a conclusion, and strengthening the connection between the premise and the conclusion were all possible things that the correct answer to a strengthening question could do. I couldn't recall where I got this concept, but I'm no longer confident with it anyway because I've read too many conflicting opinions about it everywhere...

However, I have something on my mind that I'm not sure is an example of a premise booster serving the function of strengthening an argument— if the argument commits a correlation vs. cause flaw, I believe we can simply strengthen the conclusion by adding more correlation, so does this count as a premise booster since the premise in this type of argument is exactly the "correlation"?

I feel like there's a complicated aspect here since the premise in this type of argument - the correlation - is quite special, it itself points to a direct or indirect connection between a certain phenomenon and the CONCLUSION...?

[Adam Tyson]

Ultimately, to strengthen an argument, you have to make the conclusion seem more likely to be true. Strengthening the premises will only do that if those premises then do at least something to support the conclusion. When the conclusion brings up an entirely new idea, as this one does (effectiveness is not found anywhere in the premises, only the conclusion), then strengthening the premises won't strengthen the conclusion. To illustrate, consider this example:

"I want to impress my new boss, and he is impressed by displays of wealth and privilege. Therefore, when he comes to dinner at my home, I should serve him a really smelly pile of fish guts."

Now, let's support the premises. What if I said that my boss has explicitly stated that whenever he sees a show of wealth, he is impressed? That supports the second premise. So would my saying that nothing impresses him other than displays of wealth or privilege. Or what if I said that impressing my boss would benefit me greatly? That might support the first premise, that I want to impress him. But do either of these claims do anything at all to support the conclusion of the argument, that I should serve him smelly fish guts? Not at all. There is still absolutely no reason to believe that claim. I can support the premises all I want, and I still have no impact on the conclusion. I haven't strengthened the argument one bit.

But consider this:

"I want to impress my boss, and he is impressed by displays of wealth and privilege. Serving him smelly fish guts would probably impress him in that way, so I should serve him a big plate of smelly fish guts."

The conclusion here really doesn't bring up a new idea. The premises already spoke of smelly fish guts. To strengthen this argument, then, I might want to strengthen the premises. Something like "fish guts are very expensive," or "anyone serving fish guts must be very privileged." These would strengthen the premise that serving fish guts would impress my boss, and that would indirectly strengthen the conclusion.

Or this argument:

"When I have guests, I want to impress them. When I serve fish guts, I demonstrate my wealth and privilege. Therefore, when I have guests, I should serve fish guts."

There's a gap in my premises, and I can strengthen this argument by saying that a demonstration of wealth and privilege would impress my guests. Now, the conclusion looks better, even though all I did was connect the premises to each other. That's all I had to do, because the conclusion just connected two things that were already in the premises.

So, the short answer here is this: If the conclusion brings up a new idea, then to strengthen the argument you must address that new thing in the correct answer. If the conclusion does not bring up a new idea, then you might instead strengthen the argument by adding a new premises that directly supports that conclusion, or you might choose something that connects or supports the premises.