35.       
The financial-planning office at Fern Valley University concludes that it is necessary to initiate a fund-raising campaign among alumni that will enable the university to expand the range of subjects it offers and increase the size of its library facilities. It: argument is based on a five-year decline in enrollments and admission applications together with the claim that students cite poor teaching and inadequate library resources as their chief sources of dissatisfaction with Fern Valley. The conclusion of the financial-planning office is not strongly supported by the reasons given.

      To begin with, this argument depends on the assumption that providing a greater range of subjects and a larger library will alleviate the students' chief sources of dissatisfaction. However, the students have not complained about inadequate course offerings or about the size of the library; their complaint is that the existing courses are poorly taught and that library resources are inadequate. Offering more kinds of classes does not improve teaching quality, and increasing a library's size does nothing to enhance its holdings, or resources. Accordingly, the recommendation does not bear directly on the problem as stated.

      Secondly, the proposal unfairly assumes that the recent enrollment and application decline was caused by poor teaching and inadequate library resources. It is equally possible that all colleges, regardless of teaching quality and library resources, have experienced similar declines. These declines may have been due to unrelated factors, such as unfavorable economic conditions, or an increase in high-paying computer jobs not requiring a college education.

      Thirdly, the author provides no support for the claim that students are dissatisfied with the teaching and library resources at Fern Valley. It is possible that the claim is based on hearsay or on scant anecdotal evidence. Without more information about the basis of the claim, we cannot be sure that the financial-planning office is addressing the real problems.

      In conclusion, the advice of the financial planning office is not well supported. To strengthen the argument, the planning office must provide evidence that students are dissatisfied with the range of subjects and with the library's size, and that this dissatisfaction is the cause of the recent decline in enrollment and the number of admission applications. To better assess the argument as it stands, we would need to know whether the students' attitudes were measured in a reliable, scientific manner.
36.      
This newsletter article claims that Professor Taylor's foreign-language program at Jones University is a model of foreign language instruction. This conclusion is based on a study in which foreign language tests were given to students at 25 other universities. The study shows that first-year language students at Jones speak more fluently after just 10 to 20 weeks in the program than do 90 percent of foreign-language majors at other colleges at graduation. Despite these impressive statistics, I am unconvinced by this argument for two reasons.

      To begin with, the assumption here is that students from Professor Taylor's program have learned more than foreign language students at other universities. However, we are not given enough information about the study to be sure that this comparison is reliable. For example, the article does not tell us whether the foreign language students at Jones were given the tests; it only reports that the tests in question were "given to students at 25 other colleges." If Jones students were not tested, then no basis exists for comparing them to students at the other universities. In addition, the article does not indicate whether students at all the universities, including Jones, were given the same tests. If not, then again no basis exists for the comparison.

        Furthermore, we cannot tell from this article whether the universities in the study, or their students, are comparable in other ways. For instance, Jones might be a prestigious university that draws its students from the top echelon of high school graduates, while the other universities are lower-ranked schools with more lenient admission requirements. In this event, the study wouldn't tell us much about Professor Taylor's program, for the proficiency of his students might be a function of their superior talent and intelligence.

      In conclusion, the statistics cited in the article offer little support for the claim about Taylor's program. To strengthen the argument, the author must show that the universities in the study, including Jones, were comparable in other ways, that their foreign language students were tested identically, and that Taylor's program was the only important difference between students tested at Jones and those tested at the other universities.