Q25 - George: A well-known educator claims

[b91302310]

Could anyone explain why (A) is not good enough to be the correct answer? For (E), the first part is fine; however, I could not understand why the claim is consistent with the occurrence of such cases. Is it because the phrase "more likely" to make George's cousin as the nonconfirming case but meanwhile be consistent with the occurrence of his claim?

Thanks.

[bbirdwell]

(A) does not accurately describe what George is doing. He doesn't say that his family experiences carry more weight -- he simply notes that his family experiences are contrary to what has been suggested.

The flaw here is that he says the claim is false because of the examples of himself and his cousin. However, the claim only says "more likely," it doesn't say "always, forever, without exception..."

The "nonconfirming case" is himself and his cousin. The "consistent with the occurrence" means that, even though George and his cousin were different, they are still consistent with the claim, because the claim simply says "more likely."

[WaltGrace1983]

I just thought I'd rehash this with some fresh analysis.

It is false that children who are (read to) are more likely than those ~(read to) to enjoy reading

Why? Because of the author's anecdote

However, the anecdote doesn't really refute the argument. It hardly even makes it less likely (if it does at all, which it probably doesn't). Ursula shows this. This reminds me of 32.4.25 "Extroversion...".

(A) Good start, however no "experiences of other people" are mentioned in George's stimulus.

(B) The quality/quantity of books absolutely doesn't matter. We only care about if the children were or were not read to, not what type of books.

(C) So what? Out of scope for the same reasons as (B)

(D) Doesn't need to establish this. George is just trying to refute this one particular educator's claim.

(E) Perfect. He does attempt to refute a general claim ("more likely") by referencing non-conforming cases ("My cousin..."), although that very claim is consistent with the idea of "more likely." This is flawed for the reasons Ursula describes. If you read Ursula before going to the answer choices (which I didn't do), it would be an even easier question!

[TaeC572]

To add my opinion on why the answer choice (A) is incorrect:

For me I was confused between the concept of more-weight vs. counterexample.

What George is doing in the stimulus is providing counterexamples (not the same thing as giving examples with more-weight) showing that the educator's claim is false.Therefore, the answer choice (A) is not describing the error in the stimulus correctly.

If George were to use his examples with more-weight, then he is not just claiming that the educator's claim is false but also claiming that the opposite is true (not reading in youth makes more likely to read when grown up). He should be making a point based on relatively small size of samples (him and his cousin) but with more significant/more-weight to prove the opposite.

Because George is using his examples without more weight, he can only refute the claim and but cannot prove the opposite.

In short,
More-weight: "You are wrong. In fact, it is actually the opposite"
Counterexample: "You are wrong, period"