Educational Theorist: Recent editorials have called for limits on the

Assumption questions are best approached with a kind of "shield" mentality. They are often difficult to predict (unlike more traditional strengthen/weaken questions, which you should try to make some kind of a prediction on). When reviewing the answer choices for these kinds of questions, you can typically rule out a few pretty quickly due to being out of scope. In this question I would say that A and E are the quick throwaway answers. A - there is no need to distinguish between which free-time activities are better than others, or how they are different, as the argument in no way depends on that; and E - we are discussing general child development, not development only as it pertains to academic work.

When you are then narrowing down between the final couple answer choices, you can use what Veritas refers to as the "assumption negation technique." You negate a possible answer choice, and then insert it back into the argument as an additional premise, and kaboom - the argument implodes. I view it as pulling out the "jenga piece," that final piece you pull when you lose the game of Jenga as the blocks come tumbling down.

Here the argument is:
Context) Free time activities play an important role in childhood development. Excessive homework reduces time for free time activities and therefore hinders their development
Premise) The average homework time for a 10 year old is only 30 minutes per night
Conclusion) There is no need to place limits on the homework assignments assigned to children

Negating the answer choices,
B - Regularly doing homework assignments does NOT improve academic performance: this does not crush the argument. If anything it actually strengthens the argument when negated, so is definitely not what I want
C - Individual teachers ARE the best judge of how much homework to assign: Again, if anything it strengthens the argument when negated. If teachers are the best judges, then that would further the argument that there is no need to place a limit.
D - In most schools, if not all, the homework assignments given are of a length that DOES diverge widely from the average: here's our winner. If we insert that back into the argument, then it basically nullifies the premise that the average homework time is only 30 minutes. It shows that there may be many schools that have 0 homework, and then some that have 3 hours of homework/night. The schools with 3 hours of homework/night are greatly hampering the children's development, and therefore there probably should be a limit placed.

I hope this helps!