Q6 - In her recent book

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Inference-EXCEPT (most supported generalizations)

Stimulus Breakdown:
A kid throws a tantrum because she's not getting what she wants. Eventually, the parent gives in to quiet the monster, and then the kid subconsciously learns, "Wow, tantrums get me what I want", leading to more and worse tantrums later.

Answer Anticipation:
Hard to prephrase a generalization from that, other than something like "rewarding bad behavior can lead to more bad behavior". Bad generalizations are often too extreme sounding, so keep an ear out for that.

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Supported generalization. The child "obtained the desired goal" and this led to "steadily increasing levels of misbehavior".

(B) Supported generalization. The child's tantrum influences the parent who was initially unwilling to give something to their kid but later acquiesces. The child's misbehavior increases as a result of the parent given the kid what she wanted at the height of her tantrum.

(C) Supported generalization. It's tricky to justify 'inadvertent', but it's fairly common sense that a parent would not be intentionally doing something that increases their kid's MISbehavior.

(D) This should be the answer. In this story, the child DOES "obtain the desired goal". So there's no way to support the idea of "CONTRARY to the child's intended goals".

(E) Supported generalization. The child initiates "problematic" behavior, which we can assume the parent doesn't want. And this behavior ultimately gets the child her desired goal.

Takeaway/Pattern: This is a pretty uncommon question type (Supported Generalization EXCEPT), so I don't have any big takeaways here. For normal Supported Generalization type Inference problems, we read about ONE example of something happening and then trap answers often go overboard by making it sound like that sort of thing OFTEN happens.

#officialexplanation

[sumukh09]

We're asked to find an illustration of a generalization that does not conform to the findings of the psychologists' study in the stimulus.

Argument:

A psychologist writes this book about the interaction that takes place between a child and parent whenever the child is denied something that he/she wants. She finds that the parent's tend to give in to the child's demands whenever they get annoying enough. Further, her study finds that this cycle continues as the child steadily increases their level of misbehavior in order to get what they want.

The question stem asks: The cases described by the psychologist illustrate each of the following EXCEPT

A) is incorrect because this generalization is supported by the study's findings and nothing within the answer choice deviates enough to warrant any suspicion

B) Nope. This also happens as well.

C) Wrong because this is also supported by the psychologists' findings

D) is the correct response. "unintentionally?" Uh, no. The child clearly knows what it's doing and it's not contrary to the child's goals -- they get what they want so it's exactly in line with their goals

E) incorrect because this is a generalization that can also be supported by the stim

[demetri.blaisdell]

Thanks for posting, sumukh09. I think it's great that you are working through these problems and posting your explanations. They say the best way to learn something is to teach it.

Everything about your explanation looks good to me. The one thing you might think about going forward is to beef up your explanations of the wrong answer choices. On this question, I agree that there's not much to explain (it either is an example or it isn't). But on other questions, the wrong answers are more interesting than the right answers. As you start to notice the patterns of wrong answer choices, your screening interviews will get faster and include more wrong answers. That will help you answer questions faster.

Thanks again for posting. Keep up the good work!

Demetri

[stol1989]

Thank you for discussion!
Although this question wasn't hard I found that "A" is weird.

Arguments says that:
1) "A child, denied smth by its parents, INITIATES problematic behavior..."
2) "This self-reinforced pattern of misbehavior and accommodation is repeated with steadily increasing levels of misbehavior."

"A" says "A child can DEVELOP problematic behavior patterns as a result of getting what it wants."

But all we can say from what is presented in the argument is that
1) Problematic behavior can be INITIATED by denial. Not developed. (Kind of triggered)
2) Problematic behavior levels can be INCREASED by recurring parent-child interaction pattern described in argument. Let's say that child is crying and kicking. Increased levels of problematic behavior therefore are crying louder and kicking harder. But in this case we are talking about intensifying, not developing problematic behavior patterns. When and how child developed kicking and crying behavior in order to get what it wants we have no idea. Maybe it developed this behavior by imitating its older sibling's behavior and not because it got what it wanted, like "A" says.

Argument never says what was initially responsible for DEVELOPING of problematic behavior.

I can defend "A" by suggesting that "increasing levels of misbehavior" includes developing of new types of problematic behavior (running away from home, swearing, breaking dishes and so on). But isn't it an assumption?

What do you think?

[stacksdoe]

Thank you for discussion!
Although this question wasn't hard I found that "A" is weird.

Arguments says that:
1) "A child, denied smth by its parents, INITIATES problematic behavior..."
2) "This self-reinforced pattern of misbehavior and accommodation is repeated with steadily increasing levels of misbehavior."

"A" says "A child can DEVELOP problematic behavior patterns as a result of getting what it wants."

But all we can say from what is presented in the argument is that
1) Problematic behavior can be INITIATED by denial. Not developed. (Kind of triggered)
2) Problematic behavior levels can be INCREASED by recurring parent-child interaction pattern described in argument. Let's say that child is crying and kicking. Increased levels of problematic behavior therefore are crying louder and kicking harder. But in this case we are talking about intensifying, not developing problematic behavior patterns. When and how child developed kicking and crying behavior in order to get what it wants we have no idea. Maybe it developed this behavior by imitating its older sibling's behavior and not because it got what it wanted, like "A" says.

Argument never says what was initially responsible for DEVELOPING of problematic behavior.

I can defend "A" by suggesting that "increasing levels of misbehavior" includes developing of new types of problematic behavior (running away from home, swearing, breaking dishes and so on). But isn't it an assumption?

What do you think?

stol1989 , I noticed the same thing upon reviewing, even though I really liked (D). And just like as you pointed out, what stuck out to me was "developing" the behavior. However, if you scan the stimulus, specifically after the colon: "A child, denied something by its parent, initiates problematic behavior such as screaming" .... until the parent gives in.
Now if you (not you per say) but generally speaking, don't understand the meaning of initiating, then law school will be a tough go, with all its dense reading. But that is beside the point, initiate= start=begin=develop, they all imply the same idea. Albeit in some instances, develops implies cultivating i.e. to make better, as in I would like to develop my reading skills.

Hopefully that helps!

[mswang7]

A. Yes, by a parent giving into a child, the child sees that historically bad behavior has the desired outcome, therefore more prone to repeating this course of action in the future
B. Yes child influences adult to give in & by doing so adult influences child to repeat the behavior as explained above
C. Yes, the intention of the adult when giving into a child is to stop the behavior in the moment ie screaming), however this indirectly can cause the child to repeat what has worked in the past in the future
D. The child's influence on a parent is not contrary to their goal since the parents are giving them what they want
E. By doing what the parent doesn't want child to do (ie screaming) the child gets what she/he want (parent acquiesces)