College professor: College students do not write nearly as well as the

Question

College professor: College students do not write nearly as well as they used to. Almost all of the papers that my students have done for me this year have been poorly written and ungrammatical.

Which one of the following is the most serious weakness in the argument made by the professor?

(A) It requires confirmation that the change in the professor's students is representative of a change among college students in general.

(B) It offers no proof to the effect that the professor is an accurate judge of writing ability.

(C) It does not take into account the possibility that the professor is a poor teacher.

(D) It fails to present contrary evidence.

(E) It fails to define its terms sufficiently.

JarvisR · Answer

answer is A.
College professor: College students do not write nearly as well as they used to. Almost all of the papers that my students have done for me this year have been poorly written and ungrammatical.

Professor is making a general assessment abt the college students based upon the writing skills of its student.
(A) It requires confirmation that the change in the professor's students is representative of a change among college students in general.

sony1000 · Answer

I think A, B and C are correct however, A has the best argument.

CEdward · Answer

A is clearly the answer, but why are B and C necessarily wrong?

BLTN · Answer

Dear  CEdward 
B and C can be dismissed on the reason that the professor made the generalization: If one student is poor writer then all students in the college are illiterate. We do not care whether the professor has good judgment ability or not.

Destroyer906 · Answer

For option "C" : It is talking about good teacher   and not judging one . Hence , broad idea so can be rulled out!!.

unraveled · Answer

College professor: College students do not write nearly as well as they used to. Almost all of the papers that my students have done for me this year have been poorly written and ungrammatical.

Which one of the following is the most serious weakness in the argument made by the professor?

(A) It requires confirmation that the change in the professor's students is representative of a change among college students in general. - CORRECT.

(B) It offers no proof to the effect that the professor is  an accurate judge of writing ability . - WRONG. This is like C only, focusing on non-core issue.

(C) It does not take into account the possibility that the  professor is a poor teacher . - WRONG. Did professor argued that he is good or bad? Not hitting the core of the argument of professor.

(D) It fails to present  contrary evidence . - WRONG. Irrelevant.

(E) It fails to  define its terms sufficiently . - WRONG. It's just a simple argument and need not to be complicated.

B and C might confuse some for simple reason that they might not have understood question stem properly. The question is about weakness in professor's argument not overall as presented.

Answer A.

DmitryFarber · Answer

We don't have to worry about B because we generally accept the truth of the given premises. If the professor says the writing is bad, we accept that. We only address the logic that gets us from this premise to the conclusion. As for C, there's no indication that it was the professor's job to teach these students writing and grammar. (Hopefully they've had some instruction by the time they get to college, and we don't even know what subject the professor teaches.) Therefore, we don't know whether the professor's teaching has any effect on the issue.

College professor: College students do not write nearly as well as the

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 Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

College professor: College students do not write nearly as well as the

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