In order to improve its state ranking, a high school is planning to of

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In order to improve its state ranking, a high school is planning to offer free tutoring to the students whose test scores are in the bottom 10% of its freshman and sophomore class. According to a report made by the school board, however, this is unlikely to have much effect on the school’s rank, since the students in the bottom 10% have relatively low scores because of jobs and other responsibilities that afford these students little study time.

Which of the following would most effectively counter the conclusion made in the report made by the school board?

(A) The rank that the state gives to a high school depends on a number of factors, of which test scores is only one.

(B) The same offer of free tutoring is being made available to several schools throughout the state.

(C) Every student in the bottom 10% has said that more tutoring would help their test scores.

(D) The implementation of the free tutoring will motivate students not currently in the bottom 10% to study harder so that they won’t fall into that category.

(E) The school board has expressed reservations about the free tutoring program because the money to pay for it would be taken out of other programs that the board has supported.

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Fdambro294 · Accepted Answer

One common type of assumption made by authors when they reach a conclusion is that there is NOT some other “path” via which the “outcome” can be reached.

The ultimate goal (“Outcome”) that the school hopes to reach is to raise its state rankings. It hopes to do this by offering free tutoring to certain students whose scores are in the bottom 10 percent.

The school board’s report ultimately concludes that the tutoring will be ineffective at raising the school’s rankings because these bottom 10% students do not have time to take advantage of the free tutoring. In other words, because this 1 “path” to reaching a higher ranking is unavailable, the plan to offer tutoring services to these students will not get the school to its goal of higher state rankings

However, what if there was another “path” via which offering the tutoring services would get the school to its ultimate goal of a higher state ranking?

Answer choice D offers just such a path. If by offering the tutoring services the students not in the bottom 10% become motivated to study harder, this may lead to higher scores by these students, thereby helping the school reach its overall goal of a higher state ranking. This is a different “path” not considered by the school board’s report.

In this way, answer choice D effectively counters the school board’s report.

Answer Choice A is wrong because the q stem asks us to counter the school board’s conclusion. The school board’s conclusion is that “this” (the free tutoring plan to certain bottom 10% students) is unlikely to be effective at reaching the goal of a higher state ranking. Answer A, by saying that scores are only 1 aspect that goes into the state ranking, does not directly address this conclusion about whether the planned free tutoring will help the school reach its goal.

B is wrong because evidence about what other schools are doing does nothing to counter the conclusion that this tutoring plan will not work.

C is wrong because even if these certain students believe the tutoring WOULD help them, the fact still remains that they will not have the time to take advantage.

E is wrong because this is not a discussion about money. However the school board personally feels about the “tutoring plan” has no effect on whether or not the plan will lead to the intended goal. Thus, E does not counter the school board’s conclusion.

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Varunsawhney8 · Answer

In order to improve its state ranking, a high school is planning to offer free tutoring to the students whose test scores are in the bottom 10% of its freshman and sophomore class. According to a report made by the school board, however, this is unlikely to have much effect on the school’s rank, since the students in the bottom 10% have relatively low scores because of jobs and other responsibilities that afford these students little study time.

Which of the following would most effectively counter the conclusion made in the report made by the school board?

This is Planning Argument

Conclusion: Plan(Providing Extra Classes) Will Not Work

Premise: Plan(Providing Extra Classes) is given

We need to Weaken the plan

We need to look for the choices that these classes will be beneficial for the bottom 10% of the students irrespective of other factors

(A) The rank that the state gives to a high school depends on a number of factors, of which test scores is only one.
Irrelevant 
Point is of Classes will help to improve the test score to improve the school state rank
Incorrect

(B) The same offer of free tutoring is being made available to several schools throughout the state.
Point is of Classes will help to improve the test score to improve the school state rank, if all the school implements this plan, then there will be no change in the rankings.
As the chances of success are not given so we should assume it to be equally likely.
Incorrect choice

(C) Every student in the bottom 10% has said that more tutoring would help their test scores.
Correct choice
The students are confident that the extra tutoring will help them increase their score.

(D) The implementation of the free tutoring will motivate students not currently in the bottom 10% to study harder so that they won’t fall into that category.
Irrelevant 
We are only concerned with bottom 10% not above that limit.
Incorrect

(E) The school board has expressed reservations about the free tutoring program because the money to pay for it would be taken out of other programs that the board has supported.
Irrelevant
This means Pan is scrapped
Incorrect Choice

Hoozan · Answer

Argument: 
(1) A high school wishes to improve its state ranking.
(2) To achieve this goal it has started offering free tutoring to the bottom 10% of the students
(3) The board doesn't believe that this plan will work because the reason why these students are in the bottom 10% is because of their "time"
(4) These students are investing their time in other responsibilities and hence they are not scoring well

Question stem:  Weaken the boards viewpoint

Pre-thinking:  The board is blaming their performance on the time invested in other responsibilities and not studies. But what if
(1) Even if these students had the time they would not have been able to perform well since they don't understand the subject matter OR
(2) Despite their responsibilities and "time crunch" if they get outside help they would be able to perform far better than they currently do

(A) The rank that the state gives to a high school  depends on a number of factors,  of which test scores is only one.  Incorrect.   Even if that's true, how do we prove the board that what they believe about the "free tutoring" is incorrect?

(B) The same offer of free tutoring is being made available  to several schools  throughout the state.  Incorrect.   Is this plan working out for these schools? Simply knowing that it is being implemented doesn't help us prove that the "free tutoring" is a good idea.

(C) Every student in the bottom 10% has said that more tutoring would help their test scores.  Correct.  In line with our pre-thinking

(D) The implementation of the free tutoring will motivate students not currently in the bottom 10% to study harder so that they won’t fall into that category.  Incorrect.   Will their studying harder improve the overall ranking of the school? we aren't sure and we cannot assume it to be true.

Note -  Remember the tone and direction of the argument. The board has blamed that "time crunch" of these bottom 10% students. So the board believes the students will not be able to perform irrespective of the help  (free tutoring)  provided. In order to weaken the argument we need to attack this  gap .

(E) The school board  has expressed reservations  about the free tutoring program because the money to pay for it would be taken out of other programs that the board has supported.  Incorrect.  We need to prove whether the "free tutoring" will or will not help the school increase its ranking. What and why the board feels about the plan isn't going to help us.

Correct Choice:  (C)

winterschool · Answer

In order to improve its state ranking, a high school is planning to offer free tutoring to the students whose test scores are in the bottom 10% of its freshman and sophomore class. According to a report made by the school board, however, this is unlikely to have much effect on the school’s rank, since the students in the bottom 10% have relatively low scores because of jobs and other responsibilities that afford these students little study time.

Which of the following would most effectively counter the conclusion made in the report made by the school board?

(A) The rank that the state gives to a high school depends on a number of factors, of which test scores is only one.  Correct

board conclusion - this is unlikely to have much effect on the school’s rank, if test scores is a factor of state ranking than students test scores affect school ranking

(B) The same offer of free tutoring is being made available to several schools throughout the state.  Irrelevant

(C) Every student in the bottom 10% has said that more tutoring would help their test scores.  Incorrect

it strengthens school plan

(D) The implementation of the free tutoring will motivate students not currently in the bottom 10% to study harder so that they won’t fall into that category.  Incorrect

it strengthens school plan

(E) The school board has expressed reservations about the free tutoring program because the money to pay for it would be taken out of other programs that the board has supported.  Irrelevant

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Official Explanation:

In order to improve its state ranking, a high school is planning to offer free tutoring to the students whose test scores are in the bottom 10% of its freshman and sophomore class. According to a report made by the school board, however, this is unlikely to have much effect on the school’s rank, since the students in the bottom 10% have relatively low scores because of jobs and other responsibilities that afford these students little study time.
 
 Which of the following would most effectively counter the conclusion made in the report made by the school board? 
 
(A) The rank that the state gives to a high school depends on a number of factors, of which test scores is only one.
 
(B) The same offer of free tutoring is being made available to several schools throughout the state.
 
(C) Every student in the bottom 10% has said that more tutoring would help their test scores.
 
(D) The implementation of the free tutoring will motivate students not currently in the bottom 10% to study harder so that they won’t fall into that category.
 
(E) The school board has expressed reservations about the free tutoring program because the money to pay for it would be taken out of other programs that the board has supported.

Question Type:   Weaken
  Boil It Down:   High school wants to offer free tutoring for bottom 10% of students. Report says tutoring won’t work because the bottom 10% are there due to non-academic factors that tutoring can’t help with.
  Goal:    Find the missing assumption that will weaken the argument made in the school board’s report.

Analysis:

This question asks you to  weaken  the conclusion found in the report made by the school board. Here’s the board’s argument.
 
  Premise:   The students scoring at the bottom do so because of jobs, etc.
 
  Conclusion:   Free tutoring won’t help improve the school’s rank.
 
You might have noticed that this argument assumes that the free tutoring won’t help students with jobs and other responsibilities. Questions like this one that ask you to weaken a conclusion usually attack an assumption, and if an answer choice attacked this assumption it would be effective. However, no choice does that. Let’s consider another assumption. The conclusion assumes that the tutoring program would not help students not directly impacted. But if the program motivates students NOT in the bottom 10% to do better, then their scores will improve, and the school’s rank would likely improve as well. This is what (D) states. 
 
 (A) The rank that the state gives to a high school depends on a number of factors, of which test scores is only one. 
This is background information that does not bear directly on the effectiveness of the free tutoring program in raising the school’s rank.
 
 (B) The same offer of free tutoring is being made available to several schools throughout the state. 
What other schools do has no known effect on the argument. One cannot assume what the effect is on these other schools.
 
 (C) Every student in the bottom 10% has said that more tutoring would help their test scores. 
This implies that there is a need for the program, but will the students offered the tutoring be able to find the time to take advantage of it? Will it work? We can’t say from this statement alone.
 
 (D) The implementation of the free tutoring will motivate students not currently in the bottom 10% to study harder so that they won’t fall into that category. 
This is the correct choice.
 
 (E) The school board has expressed reservations about the free tutoring program because the money to pay for it would be taken out of other programs that the board has supported. 
This implies that the board might have reasons other than those given in the report to disapprove of the free tutoring, but it does not tell us whether the tutoring will help with the school’s rank if it is implemented, and that’s all we care about.

Don’t study for the GMAT. Train for it.

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Well done, Fdambro294 ! You cracked the code on this one! Kudos to you!

vksrivas · Answer

Hi,
My assumption is every time there will be student who are bottom 10% marks, unless and untill all scored equal marks.
Kindly explain why can't we go with option (A). which says that school ranking is not based only on marks but other ways, in which tutoring the weak student could be one of the ways.

RohitSaluja · Answer

With option D, you have made an assumption that students who are not in the bottom 10% will improve their score, what is their score does not improve and rather remains the same i.e. the motivation to study harder only enables them to maintain their grades and rather not improve? in that case, the plan is still not a success, but with option C, we can say that due to extra classes students who were unable to focus on studies due to existing responsibilities(external factors) will not at-least be forced to do so by taking extra classes, which might be conducted early in the morning or late at night

vksrivas · Answer

Thanks Rohit,
Conclusion is not to improve the score of student it is state ranking of school. Also in the Argument it is not mentioned that limit of score above that the ranking of school will improve

Fdambro294 · Answer

Even though the official explanation focuses on the assumption, the ultimate goal is to weaken the conclusion. One way to weaken a conclusion is to focus on the assumptions made and point out how they MIGHT be wrong ——> the correct AC will do this by providing some fact or information that make it a “little less likely” that the Conclusion could be true. In other words, after we read the fact in the answer choice, we don’t believe the conclusion as much as we did before and the facts don’t support the conclusion as well as they did before. You’re right, we do not know whether the students who are not in the bottom 10% will DEFINITELY improve their scores or not. But, if these students who are not in the bottom 10% now do study harder, it gives us a reason to believe that the the overall scores could still go up (even though those students the plan is directed at do not have time to participate). It’s about making that connection: if they study more ———-> gives us a reason to believe that the scores COULD still go up, in spite of what the school board thinks. After all, generally speaking, students “motivated” to study harder will usually end up scoring higher. The question then becomes how far do we go with these “common sense, real world” type connections without coming up with an unsupported story or something the author doesn’t say. I think it just comes down to practice and spotting the general patterns. The weakening/strengthening correct answers are never going to be “airtight”. Focusing on the exact conclusion is the number 1 step. After that, practice..... I still look at some of the correct answers and say “how can this be true? What about this that and this?” But I started focusing on finding solid reasons to eliminate the other choices, rather than focusing on why 1 was correct. It’s definitely helped..... The key to eliminating C is to realize that the premises (facts given) are definitive. We can’t argue with them. We are told that these students have responsibilities such that they have little time to study. We have to accept that as true. Whether they put the classes at different times or not it shouldn’t matter: these bottom 10% kids just don’t have the time to study (or very little). Given that fact, all C tells us is what would happen if they actually did have more time (or what the students think would happen if they had more time). These students think the plan would help them, but since they don’t really have the time to take advantage of the services, it doesn’t really give us a reason to question what the school board says. Hopefully something helped

My head always hurts after analyzing these questions in-depth lol Posted from my mobile device

ravigupta2912 · Answer

I think, A, B and E were easy eliminations. Between C and D, this is how I went about it:-

The question stem asked us to counter (weaken) the conclusion by School Board. The conclusion by board is that bottom 10% is restricted by other responsibilities / jobs and hence they won't be able to avail free tutoring.

Lets look at C and D now.

(C) Every student in the bottom 10% has said that more tutoring would help their test scores. -- surely a weakener, but not a weakener to the claim by school board, which relies on lack of time available to bottom 10% to indicate that the plan may not work. We need to stay close to the argument in order to hit the right choice. Eliminate C.

(D) The implementation of the free tutoring will motivate students not currently in the bottom 10% to study harder so that they won’t fall into that category. -- Now this gives an alternate effect of the same plan. It'll have a positive impact on the rest of the 90% and hence may actually achieve the goal (increase in state rankings). Therefore, the School Board is not entirely right. Correct choice.

ludicrous · Answer

But how will the students be motivated? I fail to understand. I am thinking, just because the bottom 10% will receive free tutoring, wouldn't other students be motivated to score LOWER? So that they can fit into this category and claim this benefit of free tutoring?

awesome_burst · Answer

In my opinion, they don't want the free tutoring. They will be motivated to study harder to avoid falling into this category.

In order to improve its state ranking, a high school is planning to of

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