Q9 - The assertion that children of

[YLAGUNAS]

This is a role question which asks: The assertion that children of divorced parents have a higher rate of psychological problems than other children figures in the argument in which one of the following ways?

(B) states: It is the claim that the argument tries to refute.

I chose this answer because following "The rate...among children.." the author goes one to say "But it would be a mistake to conclude.." and I took that as the author refuting the claim that the rate IS higher among children of divorced parents.

The correct answer (E) says: It is cited as an established finding for which the argument proposes an explanation.

After rereading it many times, I see the support for E, but still don't understand why B is incorrect.

[timmydoeslsat]

Notice the arguer is not disputing the statistic. He is saying that is would be a mistake to conclude a certain idea from that statistic. He instead gives another assertion that can be just as likely to be true given that statistic. So (E) is correct in that this statement is really the starting point of the discussion.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Nice explanation Timmy!

I'll just run through the incorrect answers...

Incorrect Answers

(A) points to the wrong role. The claim is an observed phenomenon from which there are multiple explanations that could be drawn.
(B) points to the wrong role. The argument challenges one explanation (difficulty adjusting to the divorce) by suggesting there is another equally valid explanation (bad behaviors learned by the children that led to the parents divorce).
(C) is unsupported. The claim that divorce is harmful is not present in the argument.
(D) is unsupported. The argument does not actually attempt to establish the second explanation, but only offers it as an alternative to the first proposed explanation.

[roflcoptersoisoi]

(A) It's not the conclusion, the subsequent sentence is.
(B) Is wrong because the argument makes no attempt to refute the observed phenomenon (there are higher rates of psychological problems in children of divorced parents). Rather the argument refutes a hypothesis for the phenomenon (that the observed phenomenon is caused by the difficulty of dealing with divorce) by introducing an alternative hypothesis (it is attributable instead of certain behaviours that increase the likelihood of divorce that the children of divorced parents learn and adopt) .
(C) No such claim is even made.
(D) This is essentially saying that the phenomenon is used to prove the alternative hypothesis introduced by the author, this is not the case, the exact opposite is true.
(E) Bingo. It is a phenomenon that the author sets out to prove with this argument. He tries to substantiate his main point but introducing an alternative hypothesis.