再发一次,前面好像太小了,看不清 14.The following appeared as part of a newspaper editorial. “Two years ago Nova High School began to use interactive computer instruction in three academic subjects. The school dropout rate declined immediately, and last year’s graduates have reported some impressive achievements in college. In future budgets the school board should use a greater portion of the available funds to buy more computers, and all schools in the district should adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.” Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.
In this statement the author reaches the conclusion that other school should copy Nova High School in adopting interactive computer instruction throughout the classes and next year Nova should invest more in computer. Several reasons are offered in support in his point of view. The basis for this argument is that with interactive computer instruction, the school has lower drop rate. What’s more the writer points out that last year’s graduates reported some great accomplishment in college. This piece of article suffers several critical flaws that seriously undermine the conclusion, and accordingly is not very thoroughly well-reasoned. The main groundless lines of reasoning will be discussed respectively.
Firstly the author draws the conclusion in assuming that computer instruction is the cause of dropout rate just because the they coincided with each other. Unfortunately a mere positional correlation does not necessarily prove a causal relationship. Plausible as the causal claim is, further possible explanations must be considered and ruled out. For example, more experienced teachers newly-hired might responsible for the decline and the report of achievement. As a result, the author’s failure to investigate, even consider other possible explanation might render the conclusion highly suspect.
Secondly the author’s conclusion rests on the assumption that any other school is analogous to Nova in all aspects. The reasoning is fallacious because even though they share much similarity, they do not have the same trait offered in the conclusion. In fact there are points of dissimilarity between them. For instance, other schools have already had other equipment better than interactive computer instruction. If so adopting computer instruction will only harm the their dropout rate.
Thirdly the writer moves from previous experience to the current estimation in assuming that all remain the same over extended period of time and the same true from place to place. However, the author never indicates that nothing changes in different time or location. For instance, if next year Nova has no enough money to accommodate student, in spite of more interactive computer instruction will not be able to prevent an increasing dropout rate. Unless the argument can prove that nothing except for number of computer instruction changes next year, we can not conclude that more investment in it the following year will lead to a decline in dropout rate again.
In sum the author’s conclusion lacks logical credibility because of the absence of a full spectrum of evidence, and accordingly the data cited do not lend a strong support to what he/she claims. I would suspend my judgment about the conclusion until more convincing data are provided that all factors will remain the same next year. What’s more, before we accept the conclusion the writer should present more substantial evidence to prove that all other schools are analogous to Nova in all traits inferred in the conclusion.
(字数 468) |