PrepTest 110

Incorrect. This answer connects the ideas we need to connect for the argument's conclusion to follow logically, but not in the correct manner. We're looking for an answer saying that only students with learning disabilities have special education needs (Special education needs → Learning disabilities), not the reverse, as this answer states. The argument relies on the school not having any students with these needs based on a lack of students with learning disabilities.

Incorrect. This answer more or less restates a premise of the argument.

Incorrect. What the school should do can't justify a determination of whether the school is in violation of its charter.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Sufficient Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Westside School charter — The school must have some students with special educational needs
Westside School — Has no students with learning disabilities
Conclusion — Westside School is violating its charter

Answer Anticipation:
In Strengthen with Sufficient Premise questions, we should start by looking at the conclusion to see if any new concepts show up. Here, however, there aren't—it mentions a school in violation of its charter. The premises discuss that school's charter and what would count as a violation (at least, one violation), so the premises could justify the conclusion with the right information.

The charter of Westside School requires some students with special educational needs. So to be in violation of that charter, Westside would need to lack any students with such needs. Does it establish that? It does not—instead, it establishes that there are no students with learning disabilities. It's possible that there are students at the school who don't have learning disabilities but do have special educational needs.

In order to justify the conclusion here, then, it would need to be established that only students with learning disabilities have special educational needs.

Note that this Strengthen with Sufficient Premise stimulus applies a rule to a specific situation. That usually happens with conditional statements, and we could have represented the rule from the charter with a conditional, though we didn't. However, the same general principles apply in this case as with a question that is more clearly conditional—when an argument attempts to apply a rule to a situation, it's generally flawed in that it fails to establish the situation meets the conditions under which the rule applies.

Answer Explanation:
This answer connects the ideas that need to be connected in the correct manner, thus justifying the conclusion. The Westside School has no students with learning disabilities. If they're the only students with special education needs, then the school has no such students, in violation of its charter.

Key Takeaway:
When a Strengthen with Sufficient Premise question raises a rule and then applies it to a specific situation, it's generally flawed in that it fails to establish that the rule applies in that situation. Here, it's a little different in that the argument fails to establish that a necessary part of the rule is followed, but the same principle applies—there's a shift in the language between the situation and the rule, and the correct answer bridges that gap.

Incorrect. The conclusion is about whether the school "is currently" in violation of the charter not whether it could change the charter to be in compliance.