Re: Group 15 Question 71: Editorial The university's new student rule...
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10 Mar 2021, 17:03
Official Explanation:
Editorial: The university’s new student rule mandating that students enrolled in online courses must pay a $50 fee per course is absurd. Not only are instructional costs lower for online courses, students are already paying regular tuition costs to enroll in online courses. Students should not have to pay an additional fee to enroll in a class that does not meet in person as there are no overhead costs (facilities, instruction, materials) associated with online courses.
Which of the following is an assumption key to the passage’s argument?
A. Students should not have to pay fees in addition to tuition.
B. Students should not have to pay additional fees based on class type.
C. Students should not have to pay fees if they are commuters.
D. Online courses cost the university far less money to put on than traditional, in-person courses.
E. In-person courses are cheaper to instruct than online courses.
Question Type: Assumption
Boil It Down: The university wants to charge students an extra $50 to take an online course, even though online courses are cheaper for the college to run due to no overhead costs. The editorial argues students shouldn’t have to pay more to take a cheaper class.
Goal: Find the option that best highlights an assumption the reader MUST make for this argument to work.
Analysis:
The key assumption necessary for this editorial’s argument to make sense is that online courses have limited or less overhead required for their creation and instruction than in-person courses. This editorial doesn’t consider the cost of course preparation, planning, video recordings, online materials, data-hosting, and other concerns that online courses may initially require.
A. Students should not have to pay fees in addition to tuition.
This option is incorrect because, while the editorial’s writer may have this opinion, it is not articulated in the passage.
B. Students should not have to pay additional fees based on class type.
This option is incorrect because, while the editorial’s writer may have this opinion and it seems in line with the rest of the passage, it is not the main topic of the passage nor the argument put forth by the author.
C. Students should not have to pay fees if they are commuters.
This option is incorrect because the type of student is not considered or brought up in the passage.
D. Online courses cost the university far less money to put on than traditional, in-person courses.
Here is our correct option! For this argument to work, we must assume the actual cost of running an online course is, in fact, cheaper than an in-person course. If this was not the case, then the argument wouldn’t work.
E. In-person courses are cheaper to instruct than online courses.
This option is incorrect because this would contradict the editorial’s argument about course costs.
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