#12 - In a study of the relationship between aggression and

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True. The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[litigationqueen]

Hello,

Would like an explanation for why B is correct in spite of the word "cannot". I understand why it is proven by the stimulus, however I thought that the language would be weaker. Such as: "The level of aggression of a child can be predicted by reasons besides television viewing".

The reason I have an issue with the word "cannot" is because I think it's a could be true, not a must be true. What if levels of aggression can be determined by just television-viewing alone? I feel like the word "cannot" prevents the possibility of a similar study conducting the same research by just using television viewing. Is this incorrect?

Also, I chose answer A and was between A and B. I understood "often" to mean "some" in this case and believed that the stimulus proved itself as an example of it. If not the word "often", I think A could be disproven because of the causal word "lead" and the stimulus never mentions if television-viewing or parental treatment led to one or the other, or even the actual aggression itself. Is that correct?

Please advise, thanks!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Queen,

We can pick answer choice (B) despite the strong language because it's supported by the stimulus. We don't avoid strong language in MBT question just because it's strong; we are cautious to make sure it's adequately supported. Our stimulus tells us that high aggression occurred in both high viewing and low viewing children. That must mean that you can't determine if someone will behave aggressively just based on their viewing levels. Based on the stimulus, you can't determine from the fact that a child is high aggression if they are from a high viewing or low viewing family. Just because we aren't completely sure what those other factors are, we do know that the viewing factor is not enough.

Answer choice (A) is wrong both for the causal issue as well as the term often. We have no idea how frequently these things occur, and often is an amount more than just some. It means more than rare, or occasional, and we have no support for anything more than "some" based on the stimulus.

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[Sunlightshan]

Hi,

I chose the correct answer B, but I also feel C is tempting as the passage does say that "the parents who plan their lives in a child-centered way, their kids would be less aggressive". Could someone offer an explanation for clarity that why C is incorrect?

Thank you!

So happy to find this forum!
SS

[KelseyWoods]

Hi SS!

Answer choice (C) states: "If high-achieving, competitive parents were more child-centered, their children would be less aggressive." This statement suggests a more specific relationship than the one that we have in the stimulus. It suggests an inverse correlation between child-centered parents and aggression in children with a probable causal component in which being more or less child-centered results in less or more aggression.

From the stimulus, all we know is that " High-achieving, competitive, middle-class parents, whose children did not watch much television, had more aggressive children than parents who planned their lives in an organized, child-centered way, which included larger amounts of television viewing." This statement tells us that the parents who are more child-centered have less aggressive children. But it does not tell us that being more child-centered is what causes less aggressive children. In fact, we also know that the kids in child-centered households watch less television so the reduced aggression could be an effect of the interaction between child-centered parenting and television viewing. Or there could be some other key difference between these groups that accounts for why one group of children is less aggressive than the other.

So 1) we can't say for sure that being more child-centered would result in less aggressive children because it's very difficult to prove any specific causal relationship like this. And 2) even if we could prove a causal relationship, it would be difficult to do so in this case because maybe it's not being child-centered specifically that reduces aggression, but it's the interaction between child-centered parenting and television viewing together.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey