Q4 - community colleges, by their very nature

[smiller]

Question Type:
Identify the Disagreement

Stimulus Breakdown:
James states that, unlike community colleges, universities do not work to meet their communities' educational needs.

Margaret's first statement seems to contradict this. She talks about serving the needs of a community, not specifically "educational needs;" however, we can safely say that someone who attends a university to prepare for a career has an educational need. Taken together, Margaret's statements indicate that she believes universities, like community colleges, do work to meet their communities' educational needs.

Answer Anticipation:
We don't have to prove, with complete certainly, that Margaret and James disagree about the correct answer. We're looking for the answer that has the "most support." Identifying answers that are not supported and eliminating them is a great strategy in this case.

Correct Answer:
(A)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This is correct. It expresses Margaret's position, which contradicts James' statement about universities.

(B) This contains a detail creep. Margaret only claims that serving educational needs is "a primary goal" of universities. She never claims that any of them do this "adequately."

(C) This is a half-scope answer. We know Margaret agrees, but James says nothing about this. He might agree, or not. We don't know.

(D) Like (B), this contains a detail creep. We don't know anything about a "typical" community. The stimulus is specifically about communities that are home to a community college or university.

(E) This is also a half-scope answer, like (C). We know Margaret believes this, but we have no idea what James thinks.

Takeaway/Pattern: Half-scope answers, or ones that distort specific details in the stimulus, are common in Identify the Disagreement questions.

#officialexplanation

[adidas3ia]

Is the reason why B is wrong because it says MOST universities while Margaret says ANY university?

[maryadkins]

This argument is about the goals of universities and community colleges--not what they actually do. (A) works for this reason--James says universities don't have the goal of serving their communities, while Margaret says they do.

(B) is about what actually HAPPENS. This is a different issue altogether. I may not have a goal of being rude, but that doesn't mean I'm not being rude.

(C) and (D) are both out of scope.

(E) is out of scope in the same way (C) is--it's about why people attend college. But we're talking about the colleges' and universities' goals, not the students' goals.

[ttunden]

Here's my breakdown
__________________________________________________

J: ok so community colleges work to meet educational needs of community, uni does not. Primary goals for uni/cc are different

M: PG of uni is to serve the needs of the community. main reason to attend uni is same for cc: prepare oneself for career.

okay so basically 1st sentence of M is where the disagreement lies. James says the primary goals are different between university and CC. James says that university do not work to meet the educational needs of the community. However, Margaret says universities do, albeit by not stating educational, but just stating "needs" of the community.

We can infer that Margaret disagrees with James in that respect.

now I did not catch this during the exam but still got the correct answer by eliminating the rest. So here is my analysis

B - automatically eliminate because its talking about "adequately serving" we don't know how good of a job the universities do in serving the needs. Nowhere is this stated. We just know that they service the needs. Eliminate

C - Margaret would agree. This is stated in her paragraph. However, for James we have absolutely no idea what his opinion is on this matter. Eliminate

D - The primary educational need!?? We don't know what the #1 need is of the community.Also, we don't know anything about the "typical community." Eliminate. out of scope

E - okay similar to C, Margaret would agree. However, James has no opinion on this matter. Eliminate.

[hanhansummer]

now I did not catch this during the exam but still got the correct answer by eliminating the rest. So here is my analysis

B - automatically eliminate because its talking about "adequately serving" we don't know how good of a job the universities do in serving the needs. Nowhere is this stated. We just know that they service the needs. Eliminate

C - Margaret would agree. This is stated in her paragraph. However, for James we have absolutely no idea what his opinion is on this matter. Eliminate

D - The primary educational need!?? We don't know what the #1 need is of the community.Also, we don't know anything about the "typical community." Eliminate. out of scope

E - okay similar to C, Margaret would agree. However, James has no opinion on this matter. Eliminate.

Yes, I agree elimination is the best way to breakdown this one.

However, I still get a little problem with A. Do you mean "the educational needs" equals to the needs of "preparing for a career" in this test? Because one thing causes me uncertain about A is that Margaret never explicitly says the primary goal of university is to serve the educational needs, but rather something like career needs.

Just check if I understand correctly.