#17 - Educator: Traditional classroom education is

[lanereuden]

Okay so I formally logicicized this:
Normally if there is a fill in missing assumption/gap I can use this method:
__>___>___
Now I start with conclusion, which of course will refer to spots 1 and 3, and we leave middle spot blank


So then we have:
Not social process—>___—>ineffective
So abstractly this is equal to:

Not A—>__—>not c

So we have to get there.

Now we also know:
Developed insights—>social process
Which is abstractly equal to:
B—>A

Okay, so know we contrapose this:
Not A—>not b....that is, if not social process, then no insights developed


Okay so know we are in good shape to fill in chart:

Not A—>Not B—>not C

So know we see missing linking, the thing that isn’t given is clearly: if not b, then not c
Translating this, we get if no insights developed, then not effective


This matches answer choice D perfectly. Please tell me if I should be more cautious with this methodology...I know it works here and I expect it works with all missing link/assumption questions.

Also what’s the difference in testing between necessary and sufficient assumption questions? For necessary, you negate and see if argument falls apart.
For sufficient, you....???

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Lane,

Generally, I think you're on the right track with your understanding of this question, but I want to clarify one thing. Typically in a Justify question, the correct answer supplies a link that allows you to connect the argument's premises to its conclusion (in order to create a valid conclusion). In your "gap" understanding of setting up this particular question, I think you need one extra spot at the beginning: __ > __ > __ > __, occupied by the concept of "traditional classroom education" that is already part of both the premises and the conclusion. There's a line of reasoning in the premises that tells us some things about "traditional classroom education" (that it's not a social process, and does not develop insight), but that line of reasoning does not extend to the thing the conclusion wants to say about "traditional classroom education: that it's "ineffective." As you note, answer choice D provides the extra link that lets us move from what the premises say about traditional classroom education (that it's not a social process, and therefore does not develop insight) to what the conclusion says about it (that it's ineffective). It does so by allowing you to say that something that does not develop insight (which we already know traditional classroom education is, from the premises) is something that is ineffective (which is what the conclusion wants to prove about traditional classroom education).

You're right about the test of necessary assumptions that you describe in your post. The test of a sufficient assumption answer is what we call the Justify Formula: i.e., if you can add the answer choice to the premises in the stimulus, and the resulting argument leads to a valid conclusion, then the answer is correct.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[ronibass]

I chose answer choice C because it connected "social processes" that was in the first sentence to "rigid and artificial" in the second sentence. I read that this was one way to approach Justify questions in my practice book. I was wondering what I did wrong? I can see how D works but why did this approach not work for answer choice C

[Adam Tyson]

Focus on the conclusion for a moment, ronibass, which is the first sentence. The author is trying to prove that traditional education is not effective. The rest of the stimulus makes no mention of effectiveness, but instead talks about insight, social processes, acting from outside, and being rigid and artificial.

The odd thing out - what we sometimes call the "rogue" element in the conclusion - is "ineffective," and so that is the thing we need to connect to in our answer. Any answer that fails to include or somehow address that concept of effectiveness has to be a wrong answer, because it won't be able to justify a claim that it doesn't even address!

Your strategic approach was sound, looking to connect rogue elements, but you have to make sure that whatever else you connect, you include the rogue element that is in the conclusion.

[ieric01]

Hey guys,

I tackled this question by thinking about its flaw...And then thinking about an answer choice that, if assumed, will eliminate that flaw.

Anyhow, I'd love to know if I correctly identified what was wrong with the argument. The questions I asked myself was "What is the author taking for granted?" and "What is the author failing to consider?" Love to hear your input!

=======


The argument says traditional classroom education is ineffective because it's not a social process, but what if it’s effective for other reasons?

Maybe it’s effective because it’s harder to cheat on exams when there’s a teacher present. Or maybe it’s effective because you have a teacher holding you accountable for completing your assignments on time. Now, based on the author’s premises it’s not clear why traditional classroom education is ineffective, although I feel like we could have assumed that it's ineffective because it doesn't lead to the development of insights. Anyhow, since it's not stated explicitly, it allows us to think about other cases where traditional education IS effective, thus weakening the author's conclusion.

[KelseyWoods]

Hi ieric01!

When identifying flaws, I generally identify the conclusion, identify the premises, and then look for the gaps between the premises and the conclusion. Argument flaws are simply reasons why the premises as stated to not fully prove the conclusion as stated. So in this argument we have:

Conclusion: Traditional classroom education is ineffective
Premise: Traditional classroom education is not a social process
Premise: Social process is necessary for developing student insights (in other words, if it isn't a social process, it isn't developing student insights)

In analyzing the argument this way, it's easy to see that there's a gap between not developing student insights and being ineffective. We don't have a premise that specifically addresses effectiveness so that part of the conclusion is unsupported and that, therefore, is the flaw.

It's always good to look for ways to weaken arguments and you have identified that leaving a large gap in this argument leaves it open to several ways of attacking it. But when you're being asked specifically to justify an argument, you can't always simply look for an answer choice that eliminates a source of attack. In a Justify question, you are looking for an answer choice that when added to the premises will prove the conclusion 100%. It's a more specific task than just eliminating a possible way of weakening the argument.

For Justify questions, the most efficient way to prephrase is simply to look for the gap in the argument and then find the answer choice that connects the premises to the conclusion. Here, we're missing that link between insight and effectiveness; answer choice (D) connects those dots for us.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[PresidentLSAT]

Hi,

Was I crazy to rule out D because it talks about education? I'm so torn. The stimulus is about traditional classroom education which (in any circumstances) is very different from education in general. How is this justified?

[Robert Carroll]

President,

As the question type is Justify, an answer that goes beyond the specific situation of the stimulus is fine, as long as it proves the conclusion. If the answer choice applies to all education, then it's going to do what we want for the specific kind of education in the conclusion. Answer choice (D) covers all education. Then, a fortiori, it covers traditional classroom education.

Robert Carroll

[nicizle]

I'm not quite following the explanation's diagramming of this question, as I was sure AC C was correct. I'm also confused as to how the explanation literally states that the phrase 'traditional classroom education is ineffective,' but proceeds to diagram that entire sentence as constituting the conclusion, seemingly ignoring the effectiveness component.

I diagrammed as follows:

TCE (traditional classroom education) I (ineffective)
no SP (social process) I (ineffective) (the stimulus states that ineffectiveness is a result of a lack of SP)
DSI (develop student insight) social processes
TCE TAO (teacher acts from outside group) + IR (interaction rigid and artificial)

With this in mind, I found what I believed to be missing links:

TAO + IR no SP
no SP I + DSI

Can someone point out what I did wrong? How did I overcomplicate this, and why is my approach wrong? I'm a bit lost, as I thought I carefully diagrammed everything.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi nicizle,

The first step in solving a Justify the conclusion question (and honestly the first step in solving any LR question that contains an argument) is to correctly identify the conclusion of the argument because that is what we need to 100% prove.

Here, the conclusion of the argument is the first half of the first sentence, specifically "traditional classroom education is ineffective." The second half of the sentence, following the word "because," is not part of the conclusion. The word "because" is a premise indicator, and the two statements following "because" are premises of the argument. In other words, they help give the reasons why "traditional classroom education is ineffective."

Using a diagram similar to the original explanation, we can diagram this argument.

Premise 1: Traditional classroom education Not social process

Premise 2: Development of student insights social processes

In order to link all of the terms into a coherent argument, we are going to need to take the contrapositive of premise 2.

The contrapositive of Premise 2 is:

Not social processes Not develop insights

(Now there is another sentence in the stimulus about rigid and artificial interaction which I'm going to ignore because it turns out to be completely irrelevant to the argument and is there to distract students from the critical parts of the argument. Remember that not every sentence in the stimulus is always used to prove the conclusion. The test makers often add extraneous information in arguments and fact sets to test one's ability to distinguish what is relevant from what is not. At this point, you may be wondering how I know that this sentence is unnecessary for the argument. The short answer is that it doesn't fit into the logic of the conditional diagram and doesn't help get us to the conclusion, as we will see. Of course, if you want to diagram it, that is perfectly fine, but just understand that it doesn't correctly link to the other terms in the way that we need to justify this argument and is really just a distraction/red herring.)

Now are conclusion is:

Conclusion: Traditional classroom education Not Effective

Now the question is what would we need to add to this diagram in order to 100% prove this conclusion.

Well, the first thing to notice is that the conclusion has a new term/new information. The idea of "effective" or "ineffective" is nowhere in the premises. What this means is that our answer must discuss the concept of "effective" or "ineffective" because there is no way of 100% proving that traditional classroom education is Not effective if we haven't even mentioned this idea in the argument. The logical "gap" in the argument that we need to close is between ineffective and one of our terms in the premises. What this means is that any answer that does not mention "effective" or "ineffective" is automatically wrong. This immediately eliminates Answers A, C, and E.

As for what specifically we are looking for as our prephrase, we'd like an answer that states,

Not develop insights Not Effective

Adding this conditional statement would 100% prove our conclusion by forming the conditional chain:

Traditional classroom education Not social process Not develop insights Not Effective

This would allow us to infer:

Traditional classroom education Not Effective

Answer D is the answer that matches our prephrase and justifies the conclusion, although technically it is in the form of the contrapositive if you are using the "Unless Equation" to diagram this answer. Correct answers often are in the form of the contrapositive, so this is perfectly fine.

Answer B, the only other answer that mentions the idea of "effective," does not correctly link to the premises to prove our conclusion.