A
treats something that is necessary to make a certification process very difficult as if it were sufficient by itself to make the process very difficult
B
takes for granted that plumbers are not qualified unless they complete some certification process
C
overlooks the possibility that plumbers at other firms in the region complete certification processes that are even easier than that completed by Plumb-Ace’s plumbers
D
infers that a claim is false on the grounds that an inadequate argument has been given for that claim
E
presumes that since one part of a whole lacks a certain characteristic, the whole must lack that characteristic as well
A
as evidence that the educational system is producing students who are ignorant of the history of poetry
B
as evidence of the ambiguity of some questions
C
to illustrate that research results are difficult to interpret
D
as evidence that the ambiguity of data should not prevent us from drawing conclusions from them
E
as evidence that something is deeply wrong with the educational system
Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth century was to make a child who misbehaved sit alone outside. Anyone passing by would conclude that the child had misbehaved. Nowadays, many child psychologists would disapprove of this practice because they believe that such practices damage the child’s self-esteem and that damage to children’s self-esteem makes them less confident as adults. However, no one disagrees that adults raised under that traditional practice were, on average, as confident as adults not so raised.
Summary
It was once traditional to make misbehaved children sit alone outside, and passersby would know they had misbehaved.
Many child psychologists don’t endorse this practice based on two beliefs: (1) that it damages children’s self-esteem; and (2) that damage to children’s self-esteem makes them less confident as adults.
Children raised with the traditional practice do not tend to have lower confidence levels than adults who never underwent this practice.
Very Strongly Supported Conclusions
Either the traditional practice didn’t tend to damage children’s self-esteem, or childhood self-esteem damage doesn’t harm adult confidence.
If the traditional practice damaged children’s self-esteem, childhood self-esteem damage doesn’t tend to harm adult confidence.
If childhood self-esteem damage harms adult confidence, the traditional practice didn’t tend to damage children’s self-esteem.
A
The beliefs of many present-day child psychologists about the consequences of loss of self-esteem are incorrect.
Unsupported. It’s possible that the child psychologists are wrong to believe that self-esteem loss leads to lowered confidence, but it’s also possible that the childrearing practice in question actually didn’t tend to cause self-esteem loss.
B
Some of the most confident adults, as well as some of the least confident adults, were raised under the traditional practice in question.
Unsupported. The stimulus only mentions average confidence levels, which tells us nothing about the margins. Maybe the most and least confident adults weren’t raised under the practice and the mid-confidence adults were, averaging out to the same confidence level in both groups.
C
With the traditional childrearing practice, passersby did not always make correct inferences about children’s behavior by observing them outdoors.
Anti-supported. We know that the children were made to sit outside because they misbehaved, and we also know that anyone passing by would conclude that the children sitting outside had misbehaved. Therefore, everyone passing by would make the correct inference!
D
The most confident adults are those who developed the highest level of self-esteem in childhood.
Unsupported. We know many psychologists think that childhood self-esteem loss leads to lower adult confidence, but we don’t know if that’s true. We also don’t know whether high self-esteem correlates with high confidence levels, or even if child psychologists believe it might!
E
If children’s loss of self-esteem makes them less confident as adults, then the traditional childrearing practice in question did not tend to cause significant loss of self-esteem.
Strongly supported. Since adults raised with the practice tend to be as confident as other adults, one of the psychologists’ claims must be wrong: either self-esteem loss doesn’t make children less confident as adults, or the practice didn’t tend to cause self-esteem loss.