A study found that when rating the educational value of specific children's television shows parents tend to base the...

shunhe on August 19, 2020

Hi @ankita96,

Thanks for the question! So let’s walk through the argument first. We’re told that there’s this study that found that when rating the educational value of specific children’s TV shows, parents base their judgments on how much they like the shows themselves, and don’t really care about educational psychologists’ opinions on the shows educational value. So the argument concludes that if those educational psychologists’ views are sound, then parents have little reason to trust their own ratings.

So now we’re asked to find a flaw in the argument here. And one thing should pop to mind immediately: that maybe the parents and the educational psychologists’ opinions overlap. But let’s take a look at (E), which tells us that the argument takes for granted (or assumes) that educational psychologists are the only people who can judge the educational value of children’s television shows with a high degree of accuracy. But does the argument actually assume this, is this a necessary assumption of the argument? No, not really, it’s perfectly consistent with the argument to say that there are people other than educational psychologists who can also judge the educational value of these TV shows with a high degree of accuracy. The author is silent on this issue, and so the argument doesn’t actually assume (E). Since it’s not actually assumed, that can’t be a flaw in the argument, and so (E) is incorrect.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.