sajini wrote:
Studies have demonstrated that many immigrants to the United States receive excellent scores on the mathematics portion of standardized college entrance examinations. The high-quality mathematics education these people received in this country during their formative years is primarily responsible for this phenomenon.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the explanation above?
A. Immigrants who take standardized college entrance exams are not representative of the general population of immigrants, since only a small percentage of these people are college-bound.
B. Some educational experts are highly critical of the notion that standardized test scores can accurately indicate a student's level of college preparedness.
C. Average scores on standardized college entrance examinations have declined every year for the past two decades.
D. Because most immigrants are not native English speakers, their performance on the verbal portion of standardized college entrance exams is weak compared to that on the mathematics portion.
E. Immigrants who arrived in the United States after the age of 18 score just as high on the mathematical portion of standardized tests as those arriving at a very young age.
I'm having some difficulty understanding the wording of the stem. Is the part I've highlighted in red intended to read "in their country"? As the question is written now, the argument makes no sense, since it is not at all clear what country "this country" refers to. Perhaps they mean "in the US", but then we need to assume the author of the passage is writing from the perspective of an American. The argument hinges on this point so the stem shouldn't be ambiguous about it.
If I assume the question ought to read how I've suggested, then the answer should be E. The question stem says that many immigrants to the USA receive high scores on tests, and explains that it is the education "
these people received" in their own countries which is responsible. Since the argument is only about the education that the *test-takers* alone received, we don't particularly care about immigrants who are not test-takers. So while A looks like a good answer, it is not correct. What we do care about is comparing test-taking immigrants who were educated in their own countries with test-taking immigrants who were educated in the USA. Then we will have some basis for comparing US education with other countries' education, which is what the argument is all about. That's what makes E the best answer; E suggests that it makes no difference to test scores whether immigrants were educated in the USA or elsewhere.