PrepTest 31, Section 3, Question 20
Professor Beckstein: American Sign Language is the native language of many North Americans. Therefore, it is not a foreign language, and for that reason alone, no student should be permitted to satisfy the university's foreign language requirement by learning it.
Professor Beckstein: American Sign Language is the native language of many North Americans. Therefore, it is not a foreign language, and for that reason alone, no student should be permitted to satisfy the university's foreign language requirement by learning it.
Professor Sedley: According to your argument, students should not be allowed to satisfy the university's foreign language requirement by learning French or Spanish either, since they too are the native languages of many North Americans. Yet many students currently satisfy the requirement by studying French or Spanish, and it would be ridiculous to begin prohibiting them from doing so.
Professor Beckstein: American Sign Language is the native language of many North Americans. Therefore, it is not a foreign language, and for that reason alone, no student should be permitted to satisfy the university's foreign language requirement by learning it.
Professor Sedley: According to your argument, students should not be allowed to satisfy the university's foreign language requirement by learning French or Spanish either, since they too are the native languages of many North Americans. Yet many students currently satisfy the requirement by studying French or Spanish, and it would be ridiculous to begin prohibiting them from doing so.
Professor Beckstein: American Sign Language is the native language of many North Americans. Therefore, it is not a foreign language, and for that reason alone, no student should be permitted to satisfy the university's foreign language requirement by learning it.
Professor Sedley uses which one of the following strategies of argumentation in responding to Professor Beckstein's argument?
attempting to demonstrate that the reasoning used to reach a certain conclusion leads to another conclusion that is undesirable
trying to show that a certain conclusion contradicts some of the evidence used to support it
questioning an opponent's authority to address the issue under discussion
offering an alternative explanation of the facts used to arrive at a specific conclusion
agreeing with the conclusion of a particular argument while rejecting the evidence used to support the conclusion
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