Among the teachers at Ashcroft High School, English and History teache

Question

Among the teachers at Ashcroft High School, English and History teacher have the heaviest grading burden. In addition to the smaller daily assignments that all other teachers must grade, English and History teachers, especially of junior and senior students, must grade lengthy writing assignments a few times a semester — literary essays in English and term papers in History. Therefore, since English and History teachers grade more, they should be paid more than the teachers of other subjects.

Select Strengthen for the statement that would, if true, most strengthen the argument, and select Weaken for the statement that would, if true, most weaken the argument. Make only two selections, one in each column.

Shrivathsan · Answer

Hi  mikemcgarry ,

Good Question.
strengthen was D all right. But i somehow did not settle as D for weakner.
cause A was similar to D, If i had to eliminate A i should eliminate D as well.

Can you explain how D is the answer ?

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Shrivathsan I'm happy to respond. :-)

My friend, you wrote: " strengthen was D all right ." Did you mean (F)? In this question, the OA for the strengthener question is (F). Do you understand this? Now, for the weakener: you ask, why (D) and not (A). You see, the conclusion is " Therefore, since English and History teachers grade more, they should be paid more than the teachers of other subjects ." In other words, the argument establishes a connection between grading and salary. Choice (A) describes a scenario in which extra time is spent with students, but nothing is being graded. In that sense, (A) is analogously related but outside the main focus of the argument. By contrast, (D) is about something that is graded--in particular, a time-consuming grading project for teachers other than English & History teachers. This weakens the argument. Does this make sense? Mike :-)

BottomJee · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION     
 Choice (A)  is irrelevant. The focus of the question is about time spent grading, so time spent meeting with students is outside of the focus of the question.

Choice (B)  is irrelevant. We have absolutely no indication that teaching different grade levels would involve more or less time spend grading papers, so there is no clear connection between this statement and the thrust of the argument.

Choice (C)  is vague, making an appeal to what most schools do. If most of the other schools have equal pay for teachers of all subjects, then maybe those schools are doing things the fair way, and this argument is wrong; or maybe the argument about Ashcroft recognizes a fundamental inequity that is not recognized at most other school, and Ashcroft will, by its shining example, usher in a new era of workplace equality. Just because one place is considering doing things differently from the way everyone else does them does not necessarily indicate who is right.

Choice (D)  points out a flaw. If Science teachers spent a great deal of time grading lab reports, then it definitely wouldn’t be fair for English and History teachers to get more pay for grading, but not the Science teachers. This is a weakener.

Choice (E)  is irrelevant. If one pay system or another is the fair and right thing to do, it doesn’t matter who makes the decision to implement it. Furthermore, it sounds as if the union is interesting in basing pay on “merit”, which is a different criterion than the one supported in the argument.

Choice (F)  is a strengthener. If this is true, then indeed, pay reflects hours of work, and so if the English and History teachers do work many more hours because of all the grading they have, then they would get paid accordingly. This is a strengthener.

strengthener = (F)

weakener = (D)

manish8242 · Answer

How can D be the weakener? It doesn't say why English + history teacher should not get more. It merely says Science teachers also work hard on grading. So what? Science teachers are not our concern. We can't compare the hard work of science teacher with English/History. what if science teacher work hard but still history/english teacher work more hard on grading? Is there any means to judge whose work is harder or even equal? If not then how can we say that History/English teacher doesn't require more pay? Only if we can compare them on a scale then we can say that whether it is justifiable for E/H teachers to pay more or not, else we cant say like this.

Bunuel · Answer

I see your point but here is what the argument says:

...since English and History teachers grade more, they should be paid more than the teachers of  other  subjects.

So, the argument’s key idea is: English/History have a uniquely heavier grading load than “ other subjects ,” so they alone should be paid more.

Choice D says at least one “other subject” (science) also has several long, time-consuming written assignments to grade, so English/History are not clearly unique anymore.

Once that uniqueness is doubtful, the argument that only English/History deserve extra pay is weaker, even if we cannot measure exactly who works more.

Strengthen	Weaken
		Many math teachers either stay after school or give up their lunch periods to tutor students who have math anxiety and who need extra help.
		Teachers of some subject teach student all of one grade level, while teachers of other subject may teach students of different grade levels in the same classroom.
		At most other schools in the district, teacher pay does not differ from one subject to the next.
		Science teachers assign several lab reports a semester, each of which is time-consuming to grade.
		The teacher's union adjudicates all disputes concerning the salaries of teachers, and support a merit-based pay scale that rises for each year in teaching.
		A teacher's salary is based on the expected number of hours they put into their job in a typical week.

Among the teachers at Ashcroft High School, English and History teache

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Two-part Analysis (TPA) Questions

Among the teachers at Ashcroft High School, English and History teache

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards