Parents of high school students argue that poor attendance is the

Question

Parents of high school students argue that poor attendance is the result of poor motivation. If students’ attitudes improve, regular attendance will result. The administration, they believe, should concentrate less on making stricter attendance policies and more on increasing students’ learning.

Which of the following, if true, would most effectively weaken the parents’ argument?

A. Motivation to learn can be improved at home, during time spent with parents.

B. The degree of interest in learning that a student develops is a direct result of the amount of time he or she spends in the classroom.

C. Making attendance policies stricter will merely increase students’ motivation to attend classes, not their interest in learning.

D. Showing a student how to be motivated is insufficient; the student must also accept responsibility for his or her decisions.

E. Unmotivated students do not perform as well in school as other students.

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findingmyself · Answer

Inorder to weaken the argument that poor attendance is due to poor motivation, We need to find an alternate cause or a statement saying poor attendace is not due to poor motivation.

A. Motivation to learn can be improved at home, during time spent with parents. 
Irrelevant: We are not bothered about what happens in Home
 
 B. The degree of interest in learning that a student develops is a direct result of the amount of time he or she spends in the classroom.  
  This says motivation devlops through spending more time in classroom, which is good motivation comes by good attendance. This is exactly opposite of what parents say. CORRECT

C. Making attendance policies stricter will merely increase students’ motivation to attend classes, not their interest in learning. 
 Incorrect: Supporting the argument
 
 D. Showing a student how to be motivated is insufficient; the student must also accept responsibility for his or her decisions. 
 Out of scope: More of a character point of a person

E. Unmotivated students do not perform as well in school as other students. 
 Incorrect: Discussion is regarding motivation and student performance

Bunuel · Answer

Official Explanation:

B

Step 1: Identify the Question Type

The word “weaken” in the stem clearly indicates a Weaken question.

Step 2: Untangle the Stimulus

The parents conclude that poor motivation by schools causes poor attendance by students and that increasing students’ learning will boost their attitudes, thus making them more likely to regularly attend school.

Step 3: Predict the Answer

Notice that the parents’ argument is essentially causal in nature. According to the parents, the cause is poor motivation, and the effect is poor attendance. Whenever you’re asked to weaken a causal argument, always consider the three classic alternative explanations: (1) reverse the cause and effect (“poor attendance causes poor motivation”), (2) find an alternative cause for the effect (“anything other than poor motivation would cause poor attendance”), or (3) chalk it up to coincidence (“whatever the cause of the poor attendance, it isn’t poor motivation”). You may not know exactly what the right answer will say, but you can expect it to do one of these three things.

Step 4: Evaluate the Choices

(B) posits that the author has confused a cause with an effect—that bad attendance causes bad motivation. That’s reversal of causality, one of the classic weakeners. (B) is the correct answer. (A) suggests that parents can be vital to the development of motivation, but this has no direct link to attendance, so it doesn’t weaken the argument. (C) is a 180. It agrees with the parents’ position that a stricter policy will not lead to increased learning, the very position you are asked to weaken, so it doesn’t have any effect; the parents aren’t looking for the school to tighten attendance policies, so finding out that such tightening won’t increase their motivation does nothing to the parents’ argument. (D) introduces the idea of accepting responsibility, which sounds like a good thing overall but has no direct bearing on improving attendance. Finally, (E) mentions that unmotivated students have poorer performance, but the parents are only interested in ways to get students to improve their attendance, not their performance in school.  Choice (B) is correct.

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