Proposals for extending the United States school year to bring it more in line with its European and Japanese counter...
AndrewArabieJuly 28, 2023
I ruled out C for the same reason the explanation rules out E
The author doesn't argue for anything including an alternate interpretation of the school year. The author just says if anything can be justified by an appeal to tradition it would be something radically different than the status quo. The author counters the objection by claiming that the principle used by the objectors would support a different outcome than the objectors argue for. The author is just calling into question the principle. I don't think (C) gets anywhere in the ballpark of that. I think E gets closer but again the argument doesn't demonstrate anything but it seems closer to a demonstration than arguing for an alternative interpretation.
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I really liked E too, but I think I'm realizing the issue with it: we have no idea if bringing the school year into line with the rest of the rich world will actually better fit the needs of the economy. In the 1800s it clearly did since the labor of children was a key production factor, but now, not so much. While harmonizing schooling with the rich world might improve the quality of learning, and maybe would harmonize scheduling for parents who work in multinationals, the connection is pretty weak. In other words, I don't think the author is arguing for any specific policy in their final sentence, and is more saying the general category of things that would be justified by the tradition.
Essentially what I'm saying is that this is an argument against a principle rather than an argument for a policy, although I think we can assume the author supports changing the length of breaks.
C is pretty weak, but I think we could say it describes the argument. The author is redefining the tradition as one of aligning school around economic needs rather than having a long break.
Let me know if this makes any sense, this is a tougher one.
AndrewArabieJuly 31, 2023
I agree that the argument justifies nothing at all which is why E is wrong but I don't think the author argues for any new understanding of tradition which is why I think C is wrong. To me the correct answer should say something like "Counters the operative principle in the opposing argument by arguing it does not justify the conclusion." To me that just seems closer to a demonstration than arguing for an alternate understanding so I went with E.
I think now that I have stared at C long enough the best explanation I can give for it is that "argues for an alternative understanding" is not alluding to a specific new understanding, but rather that there should just generally be a different understanding than the one provided.
Emil-KunkinAugust 7, 2023
This is a case for getting comfortable with "technically correct" answer choices, and here technically correct is a pretty generous reading of C. While I think the author does give us a reason to think of the tradition differently, this is almost a throwaway in the argument. Regardless, it's hard to dispute that the author takes the understanding of the tradition as meaning that we should have a long break, and turns it on its head by saying that the tradition is actually to align the school year with economic patterns. Technically this fits C pretty well.
Of course, your description what the argument does is way more accurate than this. One of the hardest things is giving up on an objectively good prephrase; especially on question like this where we are only being asked to describe. I think that if there's an answer that looks like it technically goes describe the argument, even when it's deeply unsatisfying, it's important to give it credence and see how it might possibly answer the question asked, even in I would've never expected it to be the way the answr would be posed.
