Analyzing Arguments — English

The claim is the position the author wants you to accept — often in the first or last sentence.

Separate evidence (facts, examples, results) from reasoning (the logic explaining why that evidence proves the claim).

Test the evidence: the one school's results are real, but do they prove the ban caused the improvement? Consider what else could explain it.

Main claim: Phones should be locked away during the school day.

Reasoning: The argument runs on a chain of logic — phones are 'engineered by professionals to capture attention,' students cannot resist 'a machine built to be irresistible,' so removing them removes 'the single biggest competitor for their attention' and restores focus. That is the 'why' linking the author's position to the world.

Evidence: One concrete case is offered — a district school that 'collected phones each morning last year,' after which 'hallway conversations returned and test scores in two grades rose.'

Evaluation: The reasoning is plausible, but the evidence only partly supports the sweeping claim. It rests on a single school with no comparison group, so the improvement could stem from other changes that year rather than the ban — correlation is being treated as causation. The gain is also limited to 'two grades,' not the whole school, and the returned 'hallway conversations' are an impression teachers reported, not a measurement. The argument is reasonable but overreaches: one uncontrolled example cannot by itself justify a universal rule.

Response criteria

• Correctly identifies the main claim (phones should be locked away during the school day)
• Distinguishes the reasoning (phones are engineered to be irresistible, so removing them restores focus) from the evidence
• Identifies the evidence offered (the district school where phones were collected: conversations returned, scores rose in two grades)
• Evaluates the support and names at least one gap (single school, no comparison group, correlation vs. causation, only 'two grades')

Judge each reason on two questions: Is it relevant (does it bear on the claim)? Is it sufficient (is there enough of it to prove the point)?

The neighbor survey is real data — but how representative are 'eleven of the twelve families on my street' of the whole town?

Consider whether 'most residents drive' actually settles whether bike lanes should exist, or whether it skips a question (like whether safe lanes might change who bikes).

The argument offers four reasons, but the evidence behind them is mostly weak.

The first reason — 'most residents drive to work, so bike lanes would serve only a small minority' — is relevant but incomplete. It ignores an obvious possibility: people may not bike precisely because there are no safe lanes, so current low ridership cannot prove future demand. The reasoning assumes the present predicts the result of the very change being debated.

The second reason, the neighbor survey, is insufficient. 'Eleven of the twelve families on my street' is a tiny, self-selected sample of a single street, not evidence about a whole town of thousands.

The third reason, cold winters, is only partly relevant. Even granting that 'no one wants to bike in the snow,' winter is one season; the claim needs evidence about the whole year, which this omits. The fourth reason — spend the money repaving — names a real trade-off but is asserted with no evidence that repaving is the better value.

Overall, the evidence does not sufficiently support the claim. The most data-like item (the survey) is the least representative, and two reasons rest on assumptions the author never tests. The conclusion, 'a solution in search of a problem,' outruns what the evidence can prove.

Response criteria

• Assesses the relevance of each reason to the claim, not just whether it sounds persuasive
• Identifies the neighbor survey as an unrepresentative / insufficient sample ('my own street')
• Notes at least one reason that begs the question or ignores a possibility (few bike now partly because there are no safe lanes; cold winters do not rule out three other seasons)
• Reaches an overall judgment about whether the evidence supports the claim, citing the text

A fallacy is a flaw in the logic itself, separate from whether the conclusion happens to be right or wrong.

One sentence predicts a chain reaction from one small step to an extreme outcome. Another attacks the person who made the proposal instead of the proposal.

Name the pattern: sliding from 'one option' to 'no choice at all'; and judging an idea by its author's unrelated failure.

This argument reaches its conclusion through fallacies rather than evidence, and at least two are clear.

First is a slippery-slope fallacy. The passage warns that 'first they take away one meat dish; next they will push more, and soon students will have no choice at all but tofu and lettuce.' Adding one vegetarian option does not make that extreme outcome inevitable; the author simply assumes a chain reaction with no evidence that one choice leads to zero choices. The flaw is treating a small first step as if it guaranteed a distant, exaggerated end.

Second is an ad hominem fallacy. Instead of addressing the proposal, the author attacks its author: 'why trust this proposal? It comes from the same board member who last year couldn't even balance the athletics budget.' A person's unrelated budget failure says nothing about whether a vegetarian menu option is a good idea. The flaw is aiming at the messenger rather than the message.

Notably, the conclusion (keep the menu) might be defensible on other grounds — but this argument does not earn it, because both of its supports are broken reasoning rather than evidence.

Response criteria

• Identifies the slippery-slope fallacy and cites it ('next they will push more... no choice at all but tofu and lettuce')
• Identifies the ad hominem fallacy and cites it (attacking the board member's athletics-budget record instead of the proposal)
• Explains why each is flawed reasoning (one assumes an unsupported chain of events; the other attacks the person, not the argument)
• Keeps the fallacy (bad reasoning) distinct from the conclusion's actual merits

The argument leaps from two things occurring together ('less homework, better results') to one causing the other. Name that leap.

List other differences between Finland and 'our own' schools that the argument ignores — could any of those explain the test scores?

Sound reasoning needs the conclusion to actually follow from the evidence. Does 'homework must be holding our students back' follow, or is it assumed?

The argument's reasoning is unsound because it converts a correlation into a cause. Its central move is the claim that because Finland has 'very little homework, yet their students score at the top,' therefore 'homework must be holding our own students back.' Two things occurring together — less homework and high scores — are treated as proof that one produces the other.

The argument depends on an unstated assumption: that homework, and not any of the countless other differences between Finnish and American schooling, explains the test-score gap. That assumption is never defended. Finland also differs in teacher training and pay, school funding, class sizes, and child-poverty rates; any of these could drive the results the author credits to the absence of homework. The passage ignores every one of them.

Because the conclusion is assumed rather than demonstrated, the reasoning does not hold. The correlation the author calls 'impossible to ignore' is real, but a correlation cannot by itself prove causation. A better version of the argument would compare similar schools that do and do not assign homework; as written, 'less homework, better results' establishes only that the two coincide in one country, not that homework is the cause.

Response criteria

• Identifies the core flaw: treating correlation as causation ('less homework, better results' does not prove homework causes lower achievement)
• Names the unstated assumption (that homework, rather than other national/school differences, explains the score gap)
• Points to ignored alternative explanations (teacher training, funding, class size, poverty, culture, etc.)
• Reaches a clear judgment that the reasoning is unsound, citing the text

Find the claim, then notice how early the author raises the other side's objection. Why do that?

Weigh the support: the forty-cars-vs-forty-families comparison, the reduced car ownership, the cost of mandated parking. Are these relevant and fair?

A strong argument answers counterclaims and avoids overreaching. Check the last two sentences for how far the author is willing to go.

Claim: Cities should replace some downtown parking lots with housing.

Support and reasoning: The argument rests on a direct comparison — one surface lot holds 'about forty cars or, if built into apartments, forty families' — and frames it as a lopsided trade 'in a housing shortage.' It adds two supporting points: residents of converted lots 'own fewer cars,' which eases the demand critics raise, and mandated parking 'raises the cost of the homes above it.' These points are relevant and reinforce one another; the reasoning connects scarce land to its best use rather than merely asserting a preference.

Handling of the counterclaim: The argument is notably strong here. It names the opposing view up front — 'where will the cars go?' — instead of hiding it, then answers it with the claim that nearby residents drive less. Confronting the strongest objection directly makes the case more persuasive than ignoring it would.

Overall judgment: This is a comparatively strong argument. Its evidence is relevant, it engages rather than dodges the counterclaim, and it avoids overreach: 'None of this means paving over every lot,' only asking 'whether storing cars is the best use of our scarcest downtown land.' Its main limitation is that the 'fewer cars' evidence is stated generally rather than quantified, but the measured scope keeps the conclusion within what the support can bear.

Response criteria

• Identifies the claim (cities should convert some downtown parking lots into housing)
• Assesses the main evidence/reasoning (forty cars vs. forty families; converted-lot residents own fewer cars; parking mandates raise housing costs)
• Evaluates how the argument handles the counterclaim ('where will the cars go?') by raising and answering it
• Reaches a supported overall judgment and notes the argument's measured scope ('None of this means paving over every lot'), citing the text

The author agrees with opponents on one point before disagreeing. Identify exactly what is conceded and what is not.

The key move separates two things opponents treat as one. What two things? ('the platform' vs. 'the problem' / 'the features.')

Follow the logic to the proposed solution — why does the author claim regulating features works where a ban fails? Test that claim.

The argument reaches its conclusion by drawing one careful distinction, and the reasoning largely holds.

First, the author concedes the opponents' strongest point: the harms are real. 'I do not dispute the damage' — the anxiety, 'lost sleep,' and 'cruelty that follows kids home' are all granted. This concession keeps the argument honest and stops it from looking dismissive of genuine suffering.

Then comes the pivotal distinction: a ban 'confuses the platform with the problem.' The author separates two things opponents treat as identical — the existence of social media versus the 'specific features' (endless scroll, public like-counts, outrage-rewarding algorithms) that 'companies chose to build and could choose to remove.' Locating the harm in features rather than platforms is the argument's key analytical move.

That distinction drives the alternative solution. If the harm lives in features, then banning platforms fails, because 'those same features migrate to the next app,' while regulating features 'address[es] the harm wherever it lives.' The reasoning is coherent: the conclusion follows directly from the feature-versus-platform distinction, and the author even reframes the goal — 'not to keep teenagers offline' but to make their spaces 'less hostile.' The one untested assumption is that the named features are truly the whole cause of the harm the author concedes; if some damage comes from mere use rather than those features, regulation alone would fall short. But given its premises, the argument's logic is sound and well-controlled.

Response criteria

• Identifies what the author concedes (the harms are real: anxiety, lost sleep, cruelty)
• Names the central distinction (the platform itself vs. specific harmful features companies chose to build)
• Explains how the distinction yields a different solution (regulate features, which follow harm 'wherever it lives,' rather than ban platforms, whose features would 'migrate')
• Evaluates whether the reasoning holds, citing the text

Both want the pool kept open. Focus on how each one argues, not which conclusion you personally prefer.

Sort the support in each: is it feeling and personal memory, or verifiable facts and stakes?

A stronger argument usually gives reasons that would persuade someone who does not already share the author's feelings. Which one does that?

Both arguments conclude that the town should keep the public pool open, but they support that conclusion very differently, and Argument B is the stronger case.

Argument A relies almost entirely on emotion and personal history. Its support is that the author's 'family has swum there for three generations' and that closing the pool 'would break the hearts' of those who grew up there. These appeals may move readers who share the memory, but they offer no verifiable reason for someone who does not. The closing line, 'a town without a pool is not a town I recognize,' is feeling, not evidence, so an undecided reader is given little to weigh.

Argument B supports the same conclusion with facts and stakes. It notes the pool is 'the only free swimming-lesson site' in a county where 'drowning is a leading cause of child death,' cites 'nine thousand visits' last summer, and even acknowledges the counterpoint that closing it 'saves the town about forty thousand dollars' before arguing that the safety value outweighs the savings. This argument would persuade a reader with no personal attachment, because its reasoning rests on measurable public-safety consequences and honestly weighs the trade-off.

Argument B is therefore stronger: it trades nostalgia for evidence and confronts the cost of keeping the pool open instead of ignoring it.

Response criteria

• Correctly notes both arguments share the same conclusion (keep the pool open)
• Characterizes Argument A's support as primarily emotional/personal (tradition, nostalgia) rather than evidence
• Characterizes Argument B's support as evidence-based (drowning statistics, nine thousand visits, the forty-thousand-dollar cost) and weighing a trade-off
• Judges Argument B as stronger and explains why, citing both texts