To support the academic efforts of its former students

Question

To support the academic efforts of its former students, the administration of a certain university has required its professors to use only papers published by former students as additional reading material. Because of this, the quality of the additional reading material has declined significantly, hampering the professors' efforts to teach effectively.

Which of the following can be inferred about the papers that would have been used as additional reading material had professors not been required to use graduates' papers?

A. Those papers were of better quality than the papers published by the university's former students
B. Those papers were written by the professors themselves.
C. Those papers were ones that had been used in the past at the university as additional reading material.
D. Those papers had been of increasingly high quality, resulting in a major educational crisis immediately following the new requirement.
E. Those papers had been used only intermittently, but they are necessary to the proper education of the university's students.

(** I fail to understand how pt.1 is the right answer. I am only getting the point 3 right. Isn't it right to infer that before quality could be considered, the fact that these has been been used in the past as additional reading material comes into picture. So why not pt 3 stands as a stronger inference over the pt 1?)

gocoder · Answer

Conclusion: To sponsor the former students' work-> profs reading students work->leads to a decrease in teaching quality.
From options.
From question stem, seems like the alum work isn't really giving quality work. We need an answer that would improve the quality of reading so reading needs to be of better quality.

B-> very specific (no where mentioned in the Question stem) wrong
C->Don't know the correlation between old stuff and quality ->irrelevant
D->Similar old quality material ->contender
E->Irrelevant.
Between A and D, A is better. From A, it is generally any good material, needn't be older stuff, So I choose A

Abhishek009 · Answer

Hi there,

For CR questions one of my friend suggested me to talk with the option choices / rather debate them...

A. Definitely , that's the reason   " the quality of the additional reading material has declined , hampering the professors' efforts to teach effectively. "

B. Generalizes the author of the books , may be some are former students.

C. Something used in the past is not necessarily to be the best / correct

D. There may be other factors as well for the major educational crisis immediately following the new requirement ( Such as Faculty / Student profile etc....)

E. It doesn't matter whether those papers were used intermittently or regularly, their absence is regretted now, that's it...

Hence IMHO (A)

devikeerthan · Answer

the quality of the additional reading material has declined significantly, hampering the professors' efforts to teach effectively.That means older papers had better quality. A it is

shahidomer77 · Answer

Can someone tell me what the question is ? I am unable to understand what is asked. @

girivanish · Answer

A Little effort to address your query :I fail to understand how pt.1 is the right answer. I am only getting the point 3 right. Isn't it right to infer that before quality could be considered, the fact that these has been been used in the past as additional reading material comes into picture. So why not pt 3 stands as a stronger inference over the pt 1?

Goal: To support the academic efforts of its former students
Plan: the administration of a certain university has required its professors to use only papers published by former students as additional reading material.
Result: the quality of the additional reading material has declined significantly, hampering the professors' efforts to teach effectively.

Now, the question stem is stating that draw an inference about the papers that would have been used as additional reading material had professors not been required to use graduates' papers.

The option 3.  Those papers were ones that had been used in the past at the university as additional reading material. 
From the passage stem, we can deduce that the Professors had been using some sets of Papers. There is no information stated about the quality of these papers.
 This option seems to be re-statement of the unstated premise of the passage. 
Now, club this information with the question stem. 
 The Professors had been using some sets of Papers, and what made those papers superior over the graduates' papers so that the professors had not been required to use graduates' papers. 
By closely understating the question in this way, the correct inference is basically an advantage of Old papers over the Graduates' paper.
This option seems to be weak as compared to option 1.

girivanish · Answer

Please read the passage into little chunks and understand the meaning:

Goal: To support the academic efforts of its former students
Plan: the administration of a certain university has required its professors to use only papers published by former students as additional reading material.
Result: the quality of the additional reading material has declined significantly, hampering the professors' efforts to teach effectively.

Now, understand the intended meaning of question:

The Professors had been using some sets of Papers, and what made those papers superior over the graduates' papers so that the professors had not been required to use graduates' papers.

laudantiumfacere · Answer

we are saying that the quality has declined significantly; arent we comparing it against previously used study material? how else will the quality of something drop

AbhishekP220108 · Answer

laudantiumfacere yes you are right, and thats the inference basically the question is asking. Professors were using some material to teach and they used additional papers too, and when these two are taken together, the quality dropped. So previous material used was of higher quality than additionally used papers as materials

laudantiumfacere

we are saying that the quality has declined significantly; arent we comparing it against previously used study material? how else will the quality of something drop

NupurNeha123 · Answer

Actually it’s being compared with the previously used material .

DishaAgarwal12 · Answer

i am not able to understand option D. Can someone explain?

guddo · Answer

To support the academic efforts of its former students, the administration of a certain university has required its professors to use only papers published by former students as additional reading material. Because of this, the quality of the additional reading material has declined significantly, hampering the professors' efforts to teach effectively.
 
 Which of the following can be inferred about the papers that would have been used as additional reading material had professors not been required to use graduates' papers?

The passage says the new rule forced professors to use only former students’ papers, and  because of that  the quality of the additional reading material declined significantly. That implies the alternative set of readings, the ones they would have used otherwise, were higher quality.

(A) Those papers were of better quality than the papers published by the university's former students

Yes. If switching to graduates’ papers caused a significant decline in quality, then the papers that would have been used instead must have been better on average.  This is the direct inference.

(B) Those papers were written by the professors themselves.

Not stated and not implied.

(C) Those papers were ones that had been used in the past at the university as additional reading material.

They might have been, but the passage does not say so. Professors could also have changed readings over time.

(D) Those papers had been of increasingly high quality, resulting in a major educational crisis immediately following the new requirement.

No. Nothing about increasing quality, and “crisis” is invented.

(E) Those papers had been used only intermittently, but they are necessary to the proper education of the university's students.

Not supported. The passage says the decline hampered teaching, but it does not claim the previous readings were “necessary” or used intermittently.

Answer: (A)

To support the academic efforts of its former students

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To support the academic efforts of its former students

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