Official Solution:
High School Principal: There is little doubt that extra-curricular activities such as sports teams waste the time students could better spend on academics. Close to half the students in this school barely passed the math and science portions of the graduation exam. Clearly, our attention needs to be refocused. In order to improve our school’s performance on the graduation exam, I propose that we discontinue all school sports beginning next year.
Which of the following, if true, casts doubt on the principal’s conclusion that discontinuing school sports will improve academics?
A. A surplus in last year’s school budget was spent on transportation for the football team rather than on buying a new available edition of the school’s textbooks.
B. Most members of school sports teams were in the half of students that easily passed the graduation exam.
C. The principal has a specific plan for re-focusing the school’s resources on academics.
D. The school’s math and science textbooks have been outdated for two years.
E. Even though the principal claims that half the school’s students “barely passed” the graduation exam, they did meet the state’s minimum requirements for graduation.
A. If at all, this option strengthens the argument of the principal. Because funds were used in extra-curricular activities instead of academics, new editions of textbooks could not be bought, thereby, possibly, affecting the academic result of the students.
B. CORRECT. Since the sports team members performed well in academics (implying that the ones who did not participate in sports were among the poor performers), participating in sports cannot be attributed to the poor academic performance. Therefore, this option casts doubt on the principal's argument (that participating in sports leads to poor academic performance).
C. This option is irrelevant. Plan on refocusing resources has no bearing on the relation between participation in sports and poor academic performance.
D. This option is irrelevant. The principal’s point is that the time spent by students could be spent on academics by discontinuing sports events - whether the books are updated or not does not have anything to do with this cause and effect relation.
E. This option is irrelevant. Whether the students meet the state’s minimum requirements for graduation or not does not have anything to do with this cause and effect relation (that participating in sports leads to poor academic performance).
Answer: B