SeaGul wrote:
Any other schools mentioned here can be located in another country, on another side of the Earth. So without the additional connection to the argument, the answers with info about other schools kind of out of scope. No?
Ideally yes, without additional information regarding the location as you said, would be treated out-of-scope. Option should have been along the lines: Kenton School, a popular school in the county or Tiny Tots Daycare, run by the county, => i.e. something to indicate its location is within the county. I assume official questions would have such info.
But, at the same time, given this question there should be more convincing options at hand, lets assume we rule out B & D and look at A, C & E =>
A. Happy Smiles Daycare has two rooms, one for children 1– 2 years old and another for those 2– 3 years old, both of which have a child-to-caregiver ratio of 5: 1.
=> doesnt give any justification for why the ratio is low, rather additional info on the premise (ratio of 3:1) which is already present.
C. The number of students enrolled in Happy Smiles Daycare remains relatively fixed throughout the year.
=> doesnt affect the argument in any manner
E. Looming budget cuts indicate that Happy Smiles Daycare may not be able to sustain such a low child-to-caregiver ratio in coming years.
=> same as above
A,C & E are easily ruled out without raising a second-thought. Now we are forced to look at options B & D and take the assumption that Kenton School & Tiny Dots are present in the county. Just for humor, lets look at the options
B. Kenton School, which has fewer than 100 students and a legitimate child-to-caregiver ratio of 6: 1, provides classes for each year up to age 6, though the classes for those over 3 years old have a child-to-caregiver ratio more than three times that of the other classes.
=> This actually makes a good case. So now we have Kenton school claiming a lower ratio < 3:1, which was Happy Smiles Daycare claim that theirs is the lowest in the county. so it is justifying the Customer Advocate's claim.
D. Tiny Tots Daycare, which boasts a 4: 1 child-to-caregiver ratio, includes any adults who are in a classroom throughout the day.
=> we dont know how the ratio will get affected by including adults, since we dont have information about them, it may very well be 3.1:1 (higher) or 2.9:1 (lower)
So if you look at B - solid reasoning, in line with the argument => constitutes a good answer, rather a better answer when considering the options. So would have gone for this.
As you said, with location information provided, option B would have been a perfect answer. Hope this makes sense