Assumption, pg 259, #259

[setara]

Letter A was the correct answer, but the reason why i didn't choose that was because it brought in another new aspect in the answer, "sport opportunities." I chose E instead, can someone explain to me how A isn't an out of scope question?

[Robert Carroll]

setara,

Remember that for Assumption questions, you can have Defender assumptions that eliminate an idea that would undermine the conclusion. Refer to page 57 for this information. Note that Defender assumptions, because they show that a certain weakening element is not present, can include information that appears to be out of scope, because there is such a large variety in the possible ways to attack the conclusion that could be defended against by the Defender assumption.

In this particular case, the argument claims that schools will have to improve their academic offerings in order to attract students (and the voucher funds of the parents of those students). But academic offerings are not the only thing that could possibly attract students to a school, so even if vouchers give parents more choice in schools and force schools to adjust what they offer to match parent preference, there is no guarantee that parents will prefer academic improvement over other improvement. The assumption in the correct answer choice eliminates that line of attack, defending against the possibility that parents would choose based on sports opportunities or location.

Robert Carroll