Thinking Skills Paper 2 question 3

November 2007 (adapted 2012)

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BEFORE you answer any questions …

Analyse the text. Highlight or underline:

Main conclusion Intermediate conclusions Supporting reasons Examples Counter argument

Remember: do not make it too complicated!2

‘Teenage gun crime!’ ‘Nine-years old – addicted to drugs!’ Headlines shout the bad news: young people are badly behaved and anti-social. And the message? Blame the parents. They are always out at work. They do not go to work. They do not discipline their children. They beat their children. They let their children watch TV all day. They put their children under too much pressure to achieve.

Contradictory rubbish! Parents are not completely responsible for their children’s behaviour. Each and every one of us is an independent human being who can make their own choices, and this includes children. Some children from deprived homes or neglectful parents become determined to succeed and strive to do well in life. Others choose crime or anti-social behaviour despite coming from supportive backgrounds.

Zakia Ahmed, for example, comes from a good home in Islamabad – her father is a judge, and her mother a modest housewife. Yet Zakia was caught stealing in Harrods on a family trip to London. We cannot blame Zakia’s parents for her actions.

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Children are also influenced by their peers, by their teachers and by the media. These influences also contribute to the choices that children make. This means that they have to assume responsibility for their actions at a younger age than previous generations.

Anyway, our behaviour is determined by factors beyond our control. To start with, our genes dictate our behaviour to a great extent. For example, children with a short version of the MAOA gene are more likely to become criminal than other children, especially if they grow up in an abusive environment. Furthermore, we cannot go against our fate, we must follow our destiny.

So we can see that there are many reasons why children behave in an anti-social manner. These include also government policies which mean that young people do not see a future for themselves in the world their parents’ generation have made. There are too few jobs, too much pressure to make money and too many big problems to feel guilty about, with no hope of finding a solution. And too many exams.

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(a) Using the exact words from the passage as far as possible, identify the main conclusion.

(2 marks)

It just says ‘identify’, so you only need to point out the main conclusion, not comment.

Simply quote from the text (or give a very close paraphrase).

Parents are not completely responsible for their children’s behaviour

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(b) Using the exact words from the passage as far as possible, identify three reasons used to support the main conclusion. (3 marks)

In other words, find three intermediate conclusions. Try to find the best ones.

Remember to look first near the beginning and end of each paragraph.

Again simply quote from the text.

Set them out with bullet points. Do not give more than three!

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Each and every one of us is an independent human being who can make their own choices, and this includes children.

Our behaviour is determined by factors beyond our control.

There are many reasons why children behave in an anti-social manner.

Also acceptable: These influences [of peers, teachers and the media] also contribute to the choices that children make.

Our genes dictate our behaviour to a great extent. We cannot go against our fate, we must follow our destiny.

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(c) Evaluate the reasoning in the argument. In your answer you should consider any strengths, weaknesses, flaws and unstated assumptions. (5 marks)

For this question, you must evaluate: that means to give your judgement on the text.

Assumptions are unstated, and will not be found in the text. Try to identify 2 or more.

You can mention any strengths; but mainly try to define the weaknesses and flaws, using appropriate terminology whenever possible.

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Possible points: Overall The passage does offer some support for the claim that parents are

not completely responsible for their children’s bad behaviour.

However, this support is weakened by contradiction, generalisation, and poor use of examples.

Thus the argument is open to challenge because it is not coherent.

Paragraph One The author presents a weak counter argument, relying on extremes.

In this way, he sets up a straw person which will be easy to knock down.

The extreme examples of anti-social behaviour are implicitly generalised to all young people, which is unjustified.

It assumes that the news headlines are meant to apply to all or most young people.

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Paragraph Two Dismissal of the weak counter argument is rhetorical and relies on the force of

emotive language.

Parents can foster bad behaviour in their children both by under- and over-disciplining them. So the reasons in the counter argument are not “contradictory”, but simply extremes.

So the author does not adequately dismiss the counter argument.

‘Everyone makes their own choices’ is a good reason why parents are not completely responsible for their children’s behaviour.

But this argument assumes all children are mature enough to make independent choices.

However, children are not completely independent, and their behaviour depends to a fairly large extent on the examples set by their parents, and on their own age.

So the author inappropriately generalises about all children regardless of age and background.

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Paragraph Three The author assumes that seeming respectable means that these

people are good parents.

Thus the author jumps to the conclusion that, “We cannot blame Zakia’s parents for her actions”.

However, they may – for example – be too busy and neglect her, or be abusive, or over-demanding.

Nothing in this example indicates Zakia made her own choices with no parental influence.

This one anecdotal example is not sufficient to justify the case being generalised to other families.

So Zakia Ahmed is not a good example for the author to use.

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Paragraph Four

The idea that children are exposed to other influences which affect their choices does give support to the claim that there are many reasons why children behave in an anti-social manner.

However, it undermines the previous reasoning that children make their own independent choices, so it is inconsistent or even a contradiction.

The concluding sentence of this paragraph does not follow, and is therefore irrelevant.

The idea of fate/destiny is suddenly introduced without justification or discussion.

It is assumed that we all share a belief in the concepts of fate and destiny.

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Paragraph Five

The idea that our behaviour is determined by factors beyond our control would support the idea that parents are not responsible for their children’s actions.

However, again it is inconsistent with the idea that we all independently make our own choices in life.

The example of the MAOA gene is weak because it focuses only on criminal conduct.

Also ‘abusive background’ would tend to mean parents, and genes come from our parents, too – so this might contradict the idea that parents are not responsible.

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Paragraph Six Rather extreme examples, but they do support a reason for

children’s anti-social behaviour.

It is slippery slope reasoning (exaggerated reasoning) to go from the idea of worrying about the future to over-generalising that a whole generation of young people is in despair with no sense of hope at all.

If their parents’ generation have made the world which causes the behaviour, the parents’ generation does have some responsibility for the behaviour (though this does not mean that individual parents do).

The example of exams is clumsily added as an apparent after-

thought.

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Example answer: This passage offers some support for the claim that parents are not completely responsible for their children’s bad behaviour. However, it is weakened by contradiction, over-generalisation, and poor use of example.

In the first paragraph, the author’s counter argument relies on extreme examples of anti-social behaviour and assumes that the news headlines are meant to apply to all or most young people.

In the second paragraph, the idea that ‘Everyone makes their own choices’ is a good reason why parents are not completely responsible. However, this argument assumes all children are mature enough to make independent choices. In fact, children are not completely independent, and their behaviour depends largely on the examples set by their parents, and on their own age.

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In the third paragraph, the author assumes that seeming respectable means that these people are good parents, and so jumps to the conclusion that, “We cannot blame Zakia’s parents for her actions”. However, they may – for example – be too busy and neglect her, or be abusive, or over-demanding. Furthermore, this single anecdote is not sufficient to justify generalising the case to all other families.

In the fourth and fifth paragraphs, the idea that we are exposed to influences and factors beyond our control does support the claim that there are many reasons why children behave in an anti-social manner. However, it undermines the previous reasoning that children make their own independent choices, so it is a contradiction.

Finally, in the sixth paragraph, the argument ends weakly with a slippery slope reasoning going from the idea of individual children worrying about the future to a whole generation of young people being in despair with no hope at all. (278 words)

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(d) ‘Parents are responsible for their children’s behaviour.’ Write your own argument to support or challenge this claim. (4 marks)

Your argument must be something new, not already in the text.

However, it must relate clearly to the claim specified in the question (and not just be approximately on the same general topic).

It does not have to be something you personally believe; it just has to fulfil the task.

A fairly short answer is sufficient – probably about 100 words.

Give 1 main conclusion (if in doubt, just copy the given statement)

Include 2 or 3 supporting reasons, and preferably an intermediate conclusion.

Try to include at least 1 example, and perhaps a counter argument.17

Example answer 1 (support):

It is essential that children learn to respect other people’s property, and it is clearly the parents’ responsibility to teach them this. We might imagine that criminals are all adults, but burglars and thieves nearly always develop their dishonest habits at a young age: for example, taking other children’s toys without asking, or bullying their schoolmates into ‘sharing’ their lunch. So parents must teach young children not to take things which do not belong to them. There is also the common problem of graffiti and vandalism in modern towns. This is highly offensive, and usually done by teenagers who have not been brought up properly at home. (107 words)

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Example answer 2 (challenge): Children nowadays are often negatively influenced

by the internet, and this is not their parents’ fault.

Some people believe the internet is a great educational tool, but

playing games distracts children from school work

harmful material online – not controlled

for example, access to gambling can lead to addiction

filtering programmes too complicated

so national governments need to control the internet 19

Example answer 2 (challenge):

Children nowadays are often negatively influenced by the internet, and this is not their parents’ fault. Some people believe the internet is a great educational tool, but there are web-sites which waste hours of young people’s time playing trivial games, and this distracts them from school work and makes them anti-social. Furthermore, there is not enough control over harmful material online. For example, many children get access to gambling, which is illegal at their age and can lead to addiction. Filtering programmes available to parents are too complicated and quickly out of date, so national governments need to be more responsible for controlling the internet effectively. (106 words)

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