PrepTest 116

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Necessary Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Students take criticism better from people than computers, and people don't accept criticism they respond poorly to, so students will learn better from criticism from a person than a computer.

Answer Anticipation:
Strengthen with Necessary (and Sufficient) Premise questions frequently feature a new concept in the conclusion that needs to be connected to a term in the premise.

Here, the conclusion talks about learning, but the premises never establish anything about learning. In the conclusion, learning is said to be more likely from a person than a computer. The stimulus does compare people to computers, but it does so over how criticism is received. There, it states that criticism is more positively received from a person than from a computer, and positively received criticism is more likely to be accepted.

So those are the concepts that we need to have connected in the correct answer! Something like:
Students learn better from criticism they accept than criticism they don't.

Answer Explanation:
This answer connects the premises to the conclusion. The premises establish that students are more likely to accept criticism from a person, and this answer states that this acceptance is more likely to lead to learning, leading to the conclusion. If students aren't more likely to learn from criticism they accept than criticism they don't, then the argument falls apart.

Key Takeaway:
Always be on the lookout for new concepts mentioned in the conclusion of Strengthen with Sufficient/Necessary Premise questions. It's one of the most common flaws in these question types (a version of equivocation), and spotting it can make your work a lot easier!

Incorrect. Compassion isn't related to any concepts in the stimulus, so this answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. First, the way the argument is phrased actually makes any level of awareness by the students irrelevant—the premise is about receiving criticism generated by a computer versus a human, which doesn't mention awareness, making this answer out of scope. However, ignoring that for a second, this answer would still be too strong to be necessary in stating that they always have to be aware of it. If awareness is relevant to this consideration, then the argument would still apply when the students were aware of the source of the feedback, and it might not when they aren't.

Incorrect. While this might provide a potential explanation for the more negative response to the computer's criticism, it's not a necessary explanation—there are other reasons for it, and so we can eliminate this answer.

Incorrect. The argument is about differences between computer—generated and human—generated criticism, so this answer raising a similarity between them isn't necessary for the argument to work.