[讨论]再论gwd-3-32

Q32:

Newspaper editorial:

In an attempt to reduce the crime rate, the governor is getting tough on criminals and making prison conditions harsher.  art of this effort has been to deny inmates the access they formerly had to college-level courses.  However, this action is clearly counter to the governor’s ultimate goal, since after being released form prison, inmates who had taken such courses committed far fewer crimes overall than other inmates.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

1. Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is unlikely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.
   



2. Former inmates are no more likely to commit crimes than are members of the general population.
   



3. The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were not already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released.
   



4. Taking high school level courses in prison has less effect on an inmate’s subsequent behavior than taking college-level courses does.
   



5. The governor’s ultimate goal actually is to gain popularity by convincing people that something effective is being done about crime.
   

呵呵，这道题吸引了众多nn的讨论,以下引用两位NN的论述

This is an interesting question.  To effectively solve CR, one must to analyze an argument's line of reasoning(LoR).  Actually there are two arguments here, that of the governor’s and that of the passage author’s.  

LoR of the governor: deny college course --> make prison harsher --> reduce crime rate.
LoR of the author: inmates who take courses will commit fewer crimes after release  --> denying them course will lead to more crimes by them after release --> governor's action won't reduce crime rate.

Since the question ask for assumption of the author’s argument, only the author’s LoR is relevant.

Now let's look at A, which says "Not being able to ... is unlikely to deter anyone from a crime ..." (不能读书不会deter任何人)  You probably can already tell that this is not relevant to the author's LoR (although it's relevant to governor's LoR).  So, choice A is not relevant.  You don’t even needs to try deny test here.

Now let’s look at C.  C says "...inmates who chose to take courses were not already less likely ... to commit crimes after being released."  Deny C, we get "...inmates who chose to take college-level courses were already less likely... to commit crimes after being released."  In other words, denying them course will not lead to more crimes by them after release.  This directly contradicts the author’s LoR and cause the argument to fall apart.  So, C is a necessary assumption of the author.

Two side notes:

Deny test:  "To test whether a statement is necessarily assumed by an author, one can try the denial test (DT): simply deny or negate the statement and see if the argument falls apart.  If it does, the choice is a necessary assumption." -- from Kaplan.

The opposite of A is "Not being able to ... might actually deter some from a crime ..." (不能读书有可能deter一些人).  而不是 “Not being able to ... is likely to deter everyone from a crime ...” (不能读书有会deter所有人).  See the subtle differences between them?

It should be C. A simple test: A indicates that taking the courses has no impact on reducing crime rate. This is apparent opposite to the argument, in which the author is trying to say that by denying the access to such courses, the governor will not achieve his goal of reducing crime rate, indicating that taking the courses help reduce the crime rate.

C is clearly the answer in this question. The argument is trying to point out that taking the courses help reduce the crime rate. C indicates that it was not because people are already less likely to commit crime when they take the courses.

我认为A是正确的。

A的推理为 not being able to take course------->unlikely to deter crime 其逆否命题为

likely to deter crime---->able to take course，take course 是必要条件，符合加设定义。

原文推理：taken such courses ----〉far fewer crimes overall than other inmates

C是不正确的: The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were not already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released

请看原文Part of this effort has been to deny inmates the access they formerly had to college-level courses

这两个实际的范围是不一样的，C中是主动选课的犯人，文中是they formerly had to college-level, 所有的犯人，无论主被动。

already, 这只表明现在的情况，说明不了任何将来的问题，尽管现在是这样，那以后犯人都受神灵感召，无论上不上课，都打死也不犯罪了，也是很有肯能的呀，C答案又没说现在会影响将来。

一点高见一点高见，恳请迅速用板砖把我打蒙，把我打蒙。