作文求指点呀 ，谢谢

khmersmile

The following appeared as an editorial in a magazineconcerned with educational issues:

"In our country, the real earnings of men who haveonly a high-school degree have decreased significantly over the past 15 years,but those of male college graduates have remained about the same. Therefore,the key to improving the earnings of the next generation of workers is to sendall students to college. Our country's most important educational goal, then,should be to establish enough colleges and universities to accommodate all highschool graduates."

Discuss how well reasoned youfind this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoningand the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to considerwhat questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternativeexplanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can alsodiscuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, whatchanges in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, ifanything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.

In this argument the author reaches theconclusion that send students to college is a practical way to improve earningsof people. Several reasons are cited in support to the recommendation. At thefirst glance, the argument appeals to be somewhat convincing, but furtherreflection reveals the author omits some important concerns that must beaddressed to substantiate the argument.

Firstly, the argument is the classicinstant of " after this, therefore because of this" argument. Theonly evidence put forward to support the conclusion that attendance to collegeis the cause of improving earnings is that a higher college education used tocause the higher earnings. However, this alone does not constitute the causalclaim in question. Although the trend cited in the conclusion that go tocollege is one of the practical way to improve people's earnings in the pasttime, there is no guarantee that the same trend will continue. Actually thespeaker overlooks other factors that might also contribute to the result. Forinstance, the economic development of society, the supplement of job positionsand the working skills are all crucial factors that determine the earnings ofpeople, no matter the one has got a college education or not. In short, withoutconsidering and ruling our all of these and other possibilities, the author’sconclusion is really open to doubt for the reason that each of thepossibilities, if true, would sever to undermine the conclusion.

Secondly, most conspicuously, the claimrests on the gratuitous assumption that the more college and university to beoffered to high school graduates the more people would finish the higher-levereducation. However this assumption is dubious in two aspects. For one thing,even it is true that all colleges and universities are open to high-schoolstudents, not all students have the willing to finish a further education fordifferent reasons, such as poor economic condition or some just wants to go toskill school. For another, it's entirely possible that the government is lakeof money to offer so many further education resources to all high schoolgraduates. Lacking these two assumption, the expectation of improve earnings byoffer every high-school graduates further college education is entirelyunfounded.

Thirdly, the argument is unconvincing alsobecause it is based on a false analogy. Differences between the goal ofimproving earnings and the most important goal of education clearly outweigh thesimilarities, thus making the analogy highly less than valid. For example,common science told us that the most important goal of education is definitelynot making more money. Therefore without sufficient information showing thatthe conclusion in the goal of improving earnings and the most important goal ofeducation is similar, the argument is doubtful.

To sum up, the author’s conclusion that themost important goal of education is offer more high-school graduates the opportunitiesto go to colleges thus improve their earnings is seriously undermined by thenumerous flaws in his reasoning identified above. If the author could providecredible evidence about how a college education could guarantee a future improvementof earnings, eliminate other factors may result in lower attendance of collegeeducation than high-school graduation, or take into account other issuesdiscussed above, the argument would have been more convincing.