argument64 FLY AW小组第19次作业（443字）

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Argument64  第7篇 让砖头来得更猛烈些吧！
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作者：寄托家园作文版普通用户     共用时间：39分59秒     302 words
从2006年5月26日19时48分到2006年5月26日20时39分
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The following appeared in a memo from the Dean of the College of Education at Omni State University.
'Only seven of our state's high schools offer even one course in Latin, but over 80 percent of the graduates who study Latin at those seven schools enroll in college. Furthermore, a recent study shows that students who have mastered Latin perform much better in logic and critical thinking. Thus, in order to increase the percentage of our high school students who graduate from college as well as to ensure that they receive a better education in critical thinking, Omni State University should begin an intensive program to prepare our future teachers to teach high school Latin.'
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The Dean of the College of Education asserts that Omni State University should begin an intensive program to prepare their future teachers to teach high school Latin. The Dean demonstrates the high college enrollment of the students who study Latin at seven schools in their state, and the perfect abilities in logic and critical thinking of students who are good at Latin. However, neither the former nor the latter can powerfully back up the Dean's conclusion that studying Latin can improve the school's enrollment and students' abilities in critical thinking.

First of all, it is unverified to claim that the high enrollment of students who study Latin is only because of their Latin lessons. Although over 80 percent of the students who study Latin at the seven mentioned schools enroll in college, the causes of this high rate of enrollment can be various. The lessons provided together with Latin, such as mathematics, physics, or chemistry, may be much more better than those offered other schools, and therefore provides students better conditions to enter college. The students who are set to Latin classes may have already been superior in study before they entered high school, and thus they can conduct their high school lessons more easily and achieve high enrollment for their schools. As the main causes of the high rate of college enrollment of those seven high schools have not been carefully examined yet, it is too arbitrary to attribute the high enrollment simply to Latin courses offered by those schools.

Besides, it is unreasonable to conclude that students can perform better in logic and critical thinking if they study Latin. Though the students who have mastered Latin are good at logic and critical thinking, no additional information indicates that Latin language have helped them in logic and critical thinking. Perhaps they were born good at such domains, and there is no relationship among these abilities. Perhaps they gained excellent abilities in logic and critical thinking first, and then managed
to master Latin. Perhaps they mastered Latin first, but obtained perfect abilities in logic and critical thinking from other experiences. Since the detailed situation of the students who have participated in the referred study is not clear, it is unsubstantiated to build relationships between Latin mastering and logic or critical thinking performing.

In conclusion, either the conclusion that students can achieve high college enrollment by taking Latin courses or the assumption that students can obtain perfect abilities by studying Latin are unverified. As a result, the expectation to improve school's enrollment and students’ critical thinking ability by offering Latin lessons is not convincing enough for the directors of Omni State University to accept.