LR Question 18 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Education critics’ contention that the use of calculators …
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: The claim that using calculators will undermine students’ understanding of mathematical procedures is false.
REASONING: This accusation always occurs whenever there’s a new information-handling technology, for example in Greece when written language was invented.
ANALYSIS: From reading the argument, or the conclusion and reasoning above, you might notice that there’s actually no evidence provided to back the conclusion.
It says that this accusation happens whenever there’s new information technology, and provides an example from Greek philosophers.
Just because past fears about technology were incorrect does not automatically mean all such fears are baseless. Each case must be evaluated on its own merits. We have no reason to believe that the Greek example or past examples should apply in this case.
___________
- CORRECT. It relies on an analogy to past technologies but doesn’t establish that calculators and those past technologies are truly comparable. Just because writing did not ruin memory does not mean calculators won’t harm students’ understanding of math. It just assumes relevance without establishing why.
- The argument only refers to knowledge once, and refers explicitly to knowledge of underlying math procedures. That doesn’t really seem ambiguous.
- The argument doesn’t even get to this stage of considering pros and cons. It just dismisses concerns without any background.
- There’s no conditional statements in the stimulus.
- This says the argument attacks the critics’ consistency rather than evaluating their actual argument, which is not what happens here.
Example of flaw: Critics claim calculators reduce understanding of math procedures. But the same critics also support multiple-choice math tests, which only reward getting the correct answer, not understanding how to get there. So they must be wrong about the calculators.
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