#23 - Principle: It is healthy for children to engage in an

[nancy.haddad]

Hi! Could someone explain how I would derive D to be the right answer for question 23? Is it because in the application, even if Megan had only read every once in a while, she would still be detracting from her social development?

[Ben DiFabbio]

Hi! Could someone explain how I would derive D to be the right answer for question 23? Is it because in the application, even if Megan had only read every once in a while, she would still be detracting from her social development?

Hey Nancy,

The issue with the application of this principle is that it assumes that anything which "reduces the amount of time [Megan] spends interacting with other people" must also "detract from [her] social development."

The principle never told us explicitly what kinds of things might detract from a child's social development. It's certainly possible that Megan is reading literature that allows her to empathize with characters and connect to the human condition in a more profound way than she would if she were throwing sand at her classmates on the playground.

Answer choice (D) expresses this flaw clearly. The connection between "less time interacting with others" and "social development" is never made clear, so it is an unwarranted assumption to say that alone time with a book will detract from Megan's social development.

Hope that helps!

- Ben

[blade21cn]

I initially thought the wording of the principle is ambiguous: "It is healthy for children to engage in an activity that promotes their intellectual development only if engaging in that activity does not detract from their social development." Specifically, the "only if" clause can be construed as modifying the main sentence "It is healthy, only if ..." and thus be construed as "for children to engage in an activity that promotes their intellectual development, it is healthy only if engaging in that activity does not detract from their social development."

(1) Children engage in activity promoting intellectual development: healthy → NOT detract from social development.

Or the "only if" clause can be construed as modifying the infinitive "to engage in an activity that promotes their intellectual development only if ... is healthy" and thus the main sentence is "It is healthy to ..."

(2) (Children engage in an activity promoting intellectual development → NOT detract from social development) → healthy. Apparently, once the conditional statement within the parenthesis is transformed into its contrapositive form, this construction does not make any sense: (Detract → NOT Children engage) → healthy.

So I'm wondering if there is any grammatical cue for us to go directly to the first interpretation, or maybe the rule of thumb is "only if" always goes to the main verb/sentence? Thanks!

[Tami Taylor]

Hello! I want to confirm why (C) is incorrect. Is this because the contrapositive of the principle actually does tell us what is unhealthy, so the principle isn't "solely" telling us about what's healthy? The contrapositive of the principle is: Detracts from social development--> Unhealthy for children to engage. Thank you!

[Robert Carroll]

blade,

I think there's a misunderstanding here - there aren't three conditions, but only two: "it is healthy to engage in an activity that promotes intellectual development" and "engaging in that activity doesn't detract from social development". With that in mind, the only indicator is "only if", and "only if" has always modified what's right after it. If there is an exception to that rule, I literally have never seen it - I can't think of how it would manifest. So the conditional is as follows:

healthy to engage in an activity that promotes intellectual development engaging in that activity detracts from social development

Tami,

I'm glad I got to answer your question, because you are 100% right, and that's a sophisticated point. The contrapositive DOES tell you about what's unhealthy! So this principle is, in part, about what's unhealthy. Thus, answer choice (C) is wrong because there's no such misrepresentation at all - it's not a misrepresentation, but a legitimate point that the principle is also about what's unhealthy.

Robert Carroll

[Tami Taylor]

Thanks a lot, Robert!!!