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.

答案是a,可我觉得是c,请大家帮我看看？

没有找到以前讨论的链接，所以想借这里再次讨论，请高手指点。

我原来也选了C，但仔细考虑后，却觉得A可能更好。

对A取非，则变成：Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is likely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed. 意味着：在监狱中不能够take college-level courses 可能会阻止犯罪，这样，就对文中的结论： this action is clearly counter to the governor's ultimate goal起到了weaken. 所以A应该是一个assumption.

对C取非，则变成：The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released. 但这不是直接对结论削弱，而是削弱了since后的evidence。

Discussion welcome!

robert,

1.I have a question: why not the opposite of A should be "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", and how to 取非 a sentence, like A.

2.the opposite of C---

The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released.--- I think it is in support of the governor's ultimate goal ....

请robert指点一下!! many thanks in advance!

选A.

A取非有削弱作用。但是C取非后实际和原文一致。在og里面有很多错误就是这样的, consist with argument,

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?

Open to discussion.