Parent: "Students these days do not study nearly as hard as they did when I was young. When I was 15, I spent five hours a day just completing my homework. Now all the kids can finish it in three hours or less. This generation is lazier than my generation."
Student: "It's true that we spend less time on homework. But we study more subjects in school and are actually required to learn more. We're not lazy, but we spend less time on homework because we have more technology, like graphing calculators and the Internet to make our work faster."
In responding to the parent, the student does which of the following?
A)Uses an ad hominem attack to undermine the parent's argument.
B)Agrees with the conclusion of the parent, but not the reasoning.
C)Provides an alternative explanation for the phenomenon the parent is describing.
D)Refutes the broad generalizations made by the parent by giving a specific example.
E)Compares the phenomenon to an event that is better understood.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The student's response provides an alternative explanation for the phenomenon that the parent describes. The parent and student agree that less time is being spent on homework; they are arguing about the decrease's cause. The student explains the phenomenon in a different way than the parent, making answer C correct.

Parent: "Students These Days Do Not Study Nearly as Hard