Q23 - Columnist: Even if the primary

[ohthatpatrick]

This is a Strengthen question.

We should find the Prem/Conc of the argument and then consider any objections/assumptions that come to mind.

Conclusion:
University education should emphasize liberal arts rather than technical training.
(why?)
Premise:
[because] the reasoning skills you get from liberal arts allow you to adapt to new challenges and handle jobs you haven't even been trained to do.

Counterpoints:
The primary purpose of university education is making students employable
+
Technical training prepares students for a particular sort of job.

What are the gaps/weaknesses/assumptions/potential objections?

How does liberal arts better satisfy the primary goal of making students employable than technical training does?

How would we play devil's advocate and argue that university education should emphasize technical training instead of liberal arts?

We might argue that a graduate will be more employable being narrowly trained for one type of job than he would be if he only had the reasoning skills to potentially take on any number of jobs.

We might argue that most jobs in the job market require the type of specialized training you only get from technical training.

We might argue that students can get the reasoning skills that a liberal arts education provides elsewhere, so we don't need to make liberal arts the focus of university education.

These three objections would weaken the argument. However, on a Strengthen question, we often see the correct answer ruling out one of our objections, so it still pays to think through them.

(E) is the correct answer because it rules out a potential objection. If technical training DID help students acquire reasoning skills, then liberal arts ed. would have no advantage over technical training (thus, weakening the author's argument). The author was assuming that a student WOULDN'T get reasoning skills if we emphasized technical training. Thus, this answer strengthens by providing us with one of the author's assumptions / ruling out a potential objection.

=== other answers ===

(A) This doesn't strengthen. The author accepts that the primary purpose of college is to make students employable. He's making the case that a liberal arts education would better prepare students for a variety of employment opportunities/challenges. The normative modifiers of "good" education and "good" jobs are out of scope.

(B) This weakens the argument. The author wants us to think that the highly specialized technically trained graduates are not as employable as the unspecialized liberal arts graduates.

(C) The issue of which is more "interesting" is out of scope. The author isn't trying to prove that a liberal arts education leads to a more interesting life than a technical training education would.

(D) This answer feels like it's saying, "liberal arts stuff is more important than technical training stuff". However, "Having a general understanding of life" is way too much of a language shift from "the reasoning skills to adapt to new intellectual challenges". We don't know from the argument that liberal arts provides you with a better general understanding of life than technical training would.

[wj097]

(B) This weakens the argument. The author wants us to think that the highly specialized technically trained graduates are not as employable as the unspecialized liberal arts graduates.

(D) This answer feels like it's saying, "liberal arts stuff is more important than technical training stuff". However, "Having a general understanding of life" is way too much of a language shift from "the reasoning skills to adapt to new intellectual challenges". We don't know from the argument that liberal arts provides you with a better general understanding of life than technical training would.

Thanks ohthatpatrick for such thorough analysis. I think it really helps me think what makes certain choice not appealing.

Though, I thought (B) and (D) were simply out of scope and neither weakens the argument (even if we account for the assumption you mentioned in case of D).

(B) only talks about the technical training side of finding job and tells that there are some ppl (more than 1) with technical training who manage to find job. Then are we saying that (B) would also weaken if we change "many" to "few"? (those 2 are technically the same thing, right??)
To me it feels out of scope, as we are rather concerned with "finding job in comparison to each other" and not just "finding job in general".

Also for (D) even if we say its the same statement as "liberal arts stuff is more important than technical training stuff", who cares about what is more important in general? Isn't the argument concerned in regards to job/employment??

I feel like both (A) and (B) is more concerned with the premise side and clarifying would give better sense of the valid range of strengthener/weakener...

Thx!!

[Sabrina T529]

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[CelinaR448]

Hello! Thank you for the explanation, however, I do not understand why E is correct and not D.

Why I didn't choose E is because my thought process was that, we cannot assume that just because liberal arts education provides reasoning skills, that does not mean Technical training does not.
D strengthens the argument but emphasizes that liberal arts focuses on life understanding than technical skill does..

E was my second choice but I ended up choosing D. Where did I go wrong with my thought process?