Bunuel wrote:
The director of a secondary school where many students were having severe academic problems impaneled a committee to study the matter. The committee reported that these students were having academic problems because they spent large amounts of time on school sports and too little time studying. The director then prohibited all students who were having academic problems from taking part in sports in which they were active. He stated that this would ensure that such students would do well academically.
The reasoning on which the director bases his statement is not sound because he fails to establish that
(A) some students who spend time on sports do not have academic problems
(B) all students who do well academically do so because of time saved by not participating in sports
(C) at least some of the time the students will save by not participating in sports will be spent on solving their academic problems
(D) no students who do well academically spend time on sports
(E) the quality of the school’s sports program would not suffer as a result of the ban
OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
(A) No. The passage does not say that all students who play sports are having academic problems, merely that many students who play sports are having academic problems.
(B) No. The passage does not say all students who play sports are having academic problems. So possibly there are some students who play sports yet are succeeding academically.
(C) Yes. A major assumption in the director’s argument is that the students will apply some of the time they save by not participating in sports to studying. However, conceivably the students will use that time to watch television or hang out on the street corner. In other words, the time they save may not be applied to studying.
(D) No. The passage does not say all students who play sports are having academic problems. So possibly there are some students who play sports yet are succeeding academically.
(E) No. The director’s argument does not depend on either the success or the failure of the sports program.