#4 - Sydonie: Parents differ in their beliefs about the rule

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (C)

This is a Flaw in the Reasoning question with multiple viewpoints. According the question stem, the
correct answer choice will be the one that best describes the flaw in Stephanie’s viewpoint. Since
Stephanie’s viewpoint is a response to Sydonie’s argument, it makes sense to begin by examining
Sydonie’s argument.

Here is Sydonie’s argument:

Premise: Parents differ in their beliefs about the rules to which their children should be subject.

Premise: [Any disciplinary structure] will contradict some parental approaches to raising children.

Conclusion: Any disciplinary structure in schools is bound to create some parental resentment.

Stephanie’s argument attempts to disprove Sydonie’s conclusion. In doing so, Stephanie’s argument must
either prove that Sydonie’s premises are incorrect or that Sydonie’s conclusion does not follow from
those premises. However, proving that parents want their children’s schools to provide good discipline
does neither. Stephanie’s response does not prove that parents have similar ideas about good discipline
or that a given disciplinary structure will not cause resentment. Answer choice (C) best describes this
flaw in Stephanie’s argument.

Answer choice (A): Stephanie’s argument does, in fact, focus on educational research rather than
educational practice. However, this is not the flaw that her argument exhibits in attempting to refute
Sydonie’s conclusion. Stephanie’s use of educational research is acceptable; it is the conclusion that she
draws from this research – parents’ desire for good discipline proves that there will be no resentment
– that is flawed.

Answer choice (B): This is not true. Both arguments address the issue of parental attitudes toward
discipline at their children’s schools. If anything, Sydonie’s argument is the more general of the two,
since it based on a broad characterization rather than a specific finding.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. Stephanie disagrees with Sydonie’s conclusion,
insisting that parents widely desire their children’s schools to provide good discipline. Therefore,
reasons Stephanie, parents would not resent any disciplinary structure in their children’s schools. Of
course, Stephanie fails to account for Sydonie’s premises, which suggest that parental definitions of
good discipline may vary widely. If this is true, then even a universal desire among parents for good
discipline in school would not prevent resentment of any particular approach. Thus, answer choice (C)
accurately describes the flaw in Stephanie’s response.

Answer choice (D): The real problem with Stephanie’s argument is the subjectivity of the research, not
the specificity. Stephanie’s mistake is that, despite parents’ desire for good discipline, and regardless of
how high that desire ranks among their list of desirable things, parents still differ in their definition of
“good discipline” and thus there would likely still be some resentment. Stephanie’s argument does not
adequately refute Sydonie’s conclusion.

Answer choice (E): Stephanie’s argument should only be criticized for failing to accomplish its
purported purpose. The purpose of her argument is to refute Sydonie’s conclusion. Since Sydonie’s
conclusion does not address the attitude of educators toward good discipline, Stephanie’s argument need
not do so, either. This is not a valid criticism of Stephanie’s argument.

[lsat2016]

Hello,

I thought that good discipline was much greater in scope than disciplinary structure because the latter is only talking about discipline structures in school while the former is about good discipline in general. Therefore, I chose B. I am not sure what you mean by it is based on a “specific finding”. Thank you!

[lsat2016]

Did you mean that "good discipline" is a specific finding because it comes from the result of taking a list of the things that parents most want?


Thank you!

[Francis O'Rourke]

"Good Discipline" is more limited that "disciplinary structure." In this stimulus the former is used to mean any type of discipline whatsoever. The latter is used to mean whatever discipline a parent identifies as "good." Both terms are applied only to what occurs in schools.

The flaw in this argument is that every parent could agree that "good discipline" is good, but some parents might consider another parent's idea of "good discipline" to be terrible! So there is no "finding after taking a list"

[anthonychernandez]

I have similar confusions to a prior poster.

Could you explain why B is wrong? In my understanding:

Sydonie discusses the various rules that parents believe children should follow and that these various beliefs will inevitably run into some resentment at school because no school's rules could perfectly conform to all these different parental beliefs.

Stephanie says then that Sydonie's conclusion is incorrect because research says good discipline at school is important to parents.

To me, Stephanie is addressing a general issue. I'd see a similar argument being:

Person 1: Parents have various ideas about what constitutes healthy food at school. So these differing ideas will inevitably run into some tension with parents, because a school can only follow one healthy food plan.

Person 2: You're wrong! Parents think healthy food is important!

or

Person 1: Legislators have many differing ideas about how to solve climate change. Because no single bill can include all ideas, there will inevitably be some dissatisfaction with the final bill.

Person 2: You're wrong! Legislators think solving climate change is important!

Because I believed B was the biggest vulnerability, I rationalized not picking C because I didn't think that not explicitly countering a premise was a vulnerability.

[Adam Tyson]

My approach to eliminating answer B was a little different than what has been discussed here so far, and that is to note that the two speakers are actually speaking about the exact same topic - discipline of students provided by schools. Whether you call that "disciplinary structure" or "discipline provided by schools", we are still comparing apples to apples. Sydonie thinks at least some parents will resent whatever discipline is provided, Stephanie argues that they won't because they all want discipline. Same subject.

The question I would ask of you, anthonychernandez, and of lsat2016, is this: what was your prephrase? I think that's where answer C should be more appealing. My prephrase was "Stephanie completely ignored Sydonie's specific concerns." Sydonie was concerned that there is no "one size fits all" approach to discipline, and Stephanie responded with "but everyone wants discipline." Stephanie missed the point completely! Her argument presents zero relevant evidence in response to the point Sydonie made in her argument. It's not just that she failed to counter a specific premise - it's that she failed to address the core issue, at all, in any way. That's a pretty big, and obvious, flaw in her response, and the correct answer should describe that problem. Only answer C does that.

If you didn't have a prephrase, that may be the problem, and it could explain why answer B is looking more attractive than it should (and I did keep it as a contender, until I read answer C, which was a much better match for my prephrase). Be sure to determine what you are looking for with every LR question, BEFORE you look at any answer choices, and wrong answers like B will be easier to eliminate in favor of much better answers like C.

[saygracealways]

Hi PowerScore,

I'm a bit confused to what the Administrator posted below:
Stephanie’s argument attempts to disprove Sydonie’s conclusion. In doing so, Stephanie’s argument must
either prove that Sydonie’s premises are incorrect or that Sydonie’s conclusion does not follow from
those premises.

Wouldn't it be flawed for Stephanie to conclude that Sydonie's conclusion is false simply by saying that Sydonie's premises are incorrect or that Sydonie's conclusion does not follow from those premises? I thought that the only reasonable conclusion that Stephanie can draw from doing either one of the above is that Sydonie's conclusion is not well-supported/is weak. (In other words, I'm having difficulty distinguishing between this argument and the argument in this link: viewtopic.php?t=1909)

I understand that the flaw in Stephanie's argument is that Stephanie completely sidesteps Sydonie's premises while responding to Sydonie's argument (Sydnoie never said that parents differ in their beliefs that good discipline is top priority; Sydonie said that parents differ in their beliefs in the approach to subjecting kids to good discipline), but the original post may be confusing me more than it should haha

Thanks!

[KelseyWoods]

Hi saygracealways!

I like that you're reading carefully and really thinking through these ideas! You're absolutely right that disproving premises are showing that they do not support a conclusion does not fully disprove that conclusion. We were maybe not as clear with our language here as we should have been. To disprove a conclusion, you could show that the premises are incorrect to the point that in actuality they prove the conclusion false. Or you could show that even if the premises are correct that they actually disprove the conclusion the author is trying to make (that would be an internal contradiction). But typically in arguments like this, you cannot disprove a conclusion without bringing up new information that in some way directly contradicts the conclusion.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey