It is hard for students to get good grades in school. But the hardest

Question

It is hard for students to get good grades in school. But the hardest problem met by students' parents is that the students do not want to get good grades, and even an eight-year-old child could take example of "successful without good grades" people such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to explain his bad grades. To improve students' academic performance, education professor Roland Fryer decides to let students get paid on the basis of metrics such as attendance, behavior, tests and class work.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weaken the Roland Fryer's conclusion above?

(A) Students will be more interested to be paid on attendance and behavior than to be paid on tests and class work.
(B) Incentivizing students with money can make students give up their free time and invest more time to school work.
(C) Students who get paid from their parents may spend the payment on smoking and drinking.
(D) Not all parents want their children to get good grades in school tests.
(E) Money is not always the best incentive for students to have good grades in school.

tarobapo · Accepted Answer

I don't think that the answer choice is correct. The argument is "to improve students' academic performance." How do smoking and drinking have anything to do with this argument? At best, this strengthens the argument: since students smoke and drink, then to pay for it they would have to perform better academically.

E should be correct, in my opinion, since if money is not a good incentive for students, they might not want to work for it.

Edit: I tried to translate explanation from Chinese and the explanation given was that the plan has unintended side effects. But since the question is to weaken the ARGUMENT, I am confused why this would ever be correct.

maikikiuu · Answer

I am working on a book published by CD forum (the most popular Chinese GMAT/MBA forum) and found this question was not in GMAT Club. So I added to the pool. Please advise the difficulty level

maikikiuu · Answer

The argument is a typical plan type of argument: there is a problem (low academic performance), and there is a plan to solve it (pay students on the basis of metrics such as attendance, behavior, tests and class work)

To strengthen or weaken a plan, there are 3 directions: 1. achievable? 2. feasible? 3. side-effects?

E choice is a trap. It simply says that the plan is not a good plan WITHOUT providing any value-added information. "Merely reject the argument without providing any evidence" is a logic error choice in argument evaluation questions, like a question: xxx's response to yyy is flawed because_____. So I think E is at least not GMAC's type of correct answer.

Although C is not straightforward, it is the BEST choice among the 5.

wjy18300 · Answer

i choose E

Spending money on smoking and drinking, the negative result in Choice C, has nothing to do with to improve the academics, the conclusion.

So, choice C cannot be regarded to weaken the conclusion. But E can.

tarobapo · Answer

I am not sure about the third direction: side-effects. In strengthen, you are suppose to weaken the CONCLUSION. Having a side effect (which in this case is completely unrelated to the academics/conclusion) does not weaken a conclusion.

Can I know the source from which you got 3. side-effects? If this question was "created" with intent to make this "side-effect" answer correct there may very well be no correct answer and this question is flawed.

arushi118 · Answer

KarishmaB ,  Bunuel  can someone please help with this? I marked A - not able to understand that how is C correct?

AbhishekP220108 · Answer

I dont agree with official solution C

Here is my take

The Task
​We need to find the option that most seriously weakens the idea that this plan will achieve its goal. A strong weakener will show that the plan either won't work or will backfire, specifically in relation to the goal of improving academic performance.
​Evaluating the Options
​(A) Students will be more interested to be paid on attendance and behavior than to be paid on tests and class work.
​This is the correct answer. The goal of the plan is to improve academic performance, which is measured by tests and class work. The plan also pays for attendance and behavior. If students can get the reward (money) by focusing only on the easy, non-academic parts (showing up and behaving) while still ignoring the hard academic parts (tests and class work), the plan will fail to achieve its core goal. This shows how the plan will be gamed by students and ultimately fail

​(C) Students who get paid from their parents may spend the payment on smoking and drinking.
​This is a potential negative side effect, but it doesn't weaken the plan's ability to achieve its goal (improving grades). A student could theoretically improve their grades and spend the money on bad things. The plan is about improving performance, not moral character.

totamunde · Answer

actually E does not weaken rather strenghtens as it said NOT always best, can be taken as sometimes is best, which strenghtens rather than wekaining the concl 
whereas C says that incentivisng is not good as it has other wrong effects, thats y students should not be rewarded w money

KarishmaB · Answer

Not a GMAT like question at all. I don't know what principle they are using to get to (C).

It is hard for students to get good grades in school. But the hardest

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