argu9 【杀G精锐部队】第一次作业 by yy31228

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argument9【杀G精锐部队】第一次作业 by yy31228

"Fifteen years ago, Omega University implemented a new procedure that encouraged students to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of all their professors. Since that time, Omega professors have begun to assign higher grades in their classes, and overall student grade averages at Omega have risen by thirty percent. Potential employers apparently believe the grades at Omega are inflated; this would explain why Omega graduates have not been as successful at getting jobs as have graduates from nearby Alpha University. To enable its graduates to secure better jobs, Omega University should now terminate student evaluation of professors."

WORDS: 428          TIME: 01:00:00(规定时间内未完成)          DATE: 2007-12-22 上午 08:08:21

The author of this argument concludes that Omega University should now terminate student evaluation of professors. To support it, the writer points out that evaluation of professors results in the inflation of student'grades, which also impresses those potential employers to a considerable extent and cause the students of Omega University can not get decent jobs as easy as the nearby Alpha University. However, after scrutinize the argument carefully, I find it logically unconvincing in several respects.
A threshold problem with this argument is “put hoc, ergo propter hoc”. The dean provides no evidence that the inflation of grades results from the evaluation of professors. In fact, the only evidence offered to support the claim is at the evaluation of professors occurred before the grades rising. Obviously, the evidence is insufficient to establish the claim in question because diverse aspects may have an effect on the inflation of grades. For example, the scoring standard may change or perhaps students do have a progress in those tests. The author's fallacy of reasoning comes from the failure of excluding these possible elements.
The argument also commits a fallacy in assuming those potential employers'impression of the grade inflation of Omega University causes the obstacles for students to find a good job. There is no direct evidence presented to warrant this logical reasoning. In contrast, the declination of education quality or potential economy depression may also have a strong influence on the job hunting. Since the dean is not able to convince us that the potential employers'impression is the very reason, the cause- and- effect relation can not be established.
Finally, the writer cites a wrong analogy to state that Omega graduates are less successful than Alpha's in job hunting. The dean don't figure out the standard of success---the quality or the quantity. Besides, Omega University and Alpha University may concentrate on different fields. For instance, Omega University may cultivate astronauts while Alpha University may produce computer programmer. As the social demands of these two kinds of people are greatly distinctive, the judgments of those two university performance in job market have nothing comparable. For the reason mentioned above, the dean isn't proposed to compare Omega University with Alpha University.
To sum up, the dean lacks suffice facts to claim that students'evaluation of professors should be eliminated. To solidify the argument, the dean should provide more concrete evidence to demonstrate that evaluation of professors has brought in the grade rising. In addition, the dean would have to rule out the abovementioned possibilities that would undermine the arguer's claim.

[ 本帖最后由 yy31228 于 2007-12-24 18:45 编辑 ]