High School Reading: Grades 9-10 Quiz: Evaluating Arguments And Evidence

Every autumn, our town council debates whether to keep funding the community leaf-collection program, and every autumn, the same tired objections arise. Critics say the program is expensive, but they never mention that the cost per household—less than the price of two movie tickets—has not risen in a decade. Critics say residents should compost their own leaves, but they ignore the fact that nearly a third of our residents live in apartments without yards. Critics say private contractors could do the job more cheaply, yet in the three neighboring towns that privatized leaf collection, complaints about missed pickups tripled within two years. The leaf-collection program is not a luxury. It is a modest, effective service that treats every resident fairly, and it deserves continued support.

Which statement best describes the author's central argumentative strategy in the passage?

Some educators claim that requiring students to memorize multiplication tables is outdated in an age of calculators. This view is misguided. Studies of elementary students in three large districts found that those who had memorized their tables by the end of third grade later scored, on average, 18 percent higher on middle-school algebra assessments than peers who relied on calculators for basic computation. Fluency with basic facts frees up working memory for the harder conceptual work that algebra demands. Calculators are useful tools, but they cannot substitute for the automaticity that comes from practice. A carpenter who must look up how to hold a hammer will never build a house.

Which choice most accurately identifies a weakness in the author's argument?

Proponents of a four-day school week point to studies from rural districts in Missouri and Colorado where the shorter week produced no decline in standardized test scores and improved teacher retention. They argue that our suburban district should adopt the same schedule. But the comparison ignores critical differences. In the districts studied, most students came from families where at least one parent worked from home or had flexible hours. In our district, more than 70 percent of households have all adults working traditional full-time jobs outside the home. A schedule that works when parents are available to supervise a day off may not work when children would spend that day unsupervised.

How does the author most effectively challenge the proponents' argument?

The rise of remote work has been celebrated as a triumph for employees, but the celebration is premature. Yes, remote workers report saving an average of nine hours per week previously spent commuting. Yes, surveys find that 78 percent of remote employees say they prefer the arrangement. But these are short-term measurements taken during a period when remote work is still novel. What we do not yet know is how remote employees fare over the long term with respect to promotion, mentorship, and professional development. Early data from three multinational firms show that fully remote employees were promoted at roughly half the rate of their in-office counterparts over a three-year period. Before we declare remote work a victory, we should ask: victory for whom, and for how long?

Which choice best describes the function of the sentences beginning "Yes, remote workers..." and "Yes, surveys find..."?

Advocates for expanding standardized testing argue that objective assessments are the fairest way to evaluate students, because a test administered under uniform conditions gives every student the same opportunity to demonstrate knowledge. This argument has intuitive appeal, but it collapses under examination. Consider two students taking the same physics exam. One studies in a quiet home with tutors available and had access to a well-funded science program since middle school. The other studies in a crowded apartment while working evenings to help support her family and attends a school where the physics teacher position has been vacant for two years. The test may be identical, but the students' opportunities to prepare for it were not. Calling this arrangement "fair" confuses uniformity of conditions during the test with fairness of opportunity before it.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the author's argument?

Our city should reject the proposed downtown stadium. Supporters promise that the stadium will generate $60 million per year in new economic activity, but this figure counts every dollar spent at the stadium as "new" money, when in fact much of it would have been spent elsewhere in the city on restaurants, concerts, or entertainment. Independent economists who have studied stadium projects in twenty-three cities found that the actual net economic gain was, on average, less than one-tenth of the figures promised by developers. Meanwhile, the $400 million in public financing required for construction would be diverted from schools, transit, and housing—all of which have documented returns on investment that exceed those of professional sports venues.

Which choice most accurately describes how the author challenges the supporters' $60 million figure?

Zoos, in their modern form, are more defensible than their critics allow. Contemporary accredited zoos devote an average of 43 percent of their annual budgets to conservation programs, including breeding efforts that have brought species such as the California condor and the Arabian oryx back from the edge of extinction. Zoos also fund field research in habitats around the world. Critics counter that keeping animals in enclosures, however spacious, is inherently cruel. But this objection treats all captivity as equivalent, ignoring the enormous differences between a roadside menagerie and a modern zoological park with veterinary staff, enrichment programs, and space designed by animal-welfare scientists. The moral question is not whether zoos should exist, but what standards they should meet.

Which statement best evaluates the author's response to the critics mentioned in the passage?

The push to ban single-use plastic straws has become a symbol of environmental action, but it is largely symbolic. Plastic straws account for less than 0.03 percent of the plastic waste that enters the world's oceans each year. Meanwhile, discarded fishing gear—nets, lines, and traps abandoned by commercial vessels—makes up nearly half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by weight. Banning straws may make consumers feel virtuous, but it diverts attention and political energy from the industrial-scale sources that cause the vast majority of the damage. If we are serious about ocean plastics, we should regulate commercial fishing gear first and worry about straws later.

The author's central claim depends most directly on which underlying assumption?

There is a strange asymmetry in how we regulate risk. A new medication must undergo years of clinical trials before it reaches patients, and rightly so; we want to ensure it does more good than harm. Yet a new social-media feature, capable of reaching hundreds of millions of adolescents within weeks, can be deployed with essentially no external review. If we required pharmaceutical companies to prove safety before releasing pills, why do we not require technology companies to demonstrate safety before releasing features designed to maximize engagement in developing brains? The scale of potential harm is comparable; the difference lies only in our familiarity with the older industry and our uncertainty about how to regulate the newer one.

The author's argument primarily relies on which rhetorical strategy?

Some historians argue that the printing press was the single most important invention of the last millennium because it enabled mass literacy and the rapid spread of ideas. This claim is overstated. The printing press was undoubtedly transformative, but it operated within social conditions that made its impact possible. In regions where literacy rates were near zero and where religious or political authorities controlled which texts could circulate, the mere existence of printing changed little for centuries. The press flourished where earlier developments—urbanization, the growth of universities, the emergence of a merchant class hungry for information—had prepared the ground. To call the press the most important invention is to mistake the spark for the fuel. Without the surrounding conditions, the spark would have died.

The author would most likely agree with which statement about historical causation?

It is often claimed that social media has made teenagers lonelier than any previous generation. The evidence typically offered is a rise in self-reported loneliness among adolescents since 2010, roughly the period during which smartphones became widespread. The correlation is real, but the causal story is not so simple. Rates of adolescent loneliness also rose during the same period in Japan, where teen social-media use is notably lower than in the United States. They rose in Germany, where average screen time among teens is roughly two-thirds of the American average. If social media were the primary driver, we would expect the sharpest increases in the places with the heaviest use. Instead, we see broadly similar trends across societies with very different patterns of technology adoption—suggesting that other forces, perhaps economic or educational, may play a larger role than the popular narrative admits.

The author's argument relies most heavily on which type of reasoning?

Critics of raising the minimum wage often argue that such increases lead to job losses, and they point to basic economic theory: if labor costs rise, employers will hire fewer workers. But this reasoning treats a simple model as though it were a complete description of the labor market. In reality, employers who pay higher wages often see reduced turnover, lower training costs, and higher productivity, all of which offset some or all of the added expense. A 2019 review of studies covering minimum-wage increases in 138 regions found no consistent evidence of significant employment declines in the majority of cases. This does not prove that minimum-wage increases never cause job losses, but it does suggest that the confident predictions of the critics rest on a theory that reality has repeatedly failed to confirm.

Which of the following best describes a limitation the author openly acknowledges in her own argument?