Analysing Two Opinions on Mother-Tongue Schooling
You read two short opinion pieces in Tamil. Writer A, a retired teacher, argues that children must be taught in Tamil first because 'a tree without roots falls', and cites her own village school where 90 percent of students passed public exams in the 1980s. Writer B, a software engineer in Colombo, argues that English-medium instruction from age six is necessary for jobs, and cites a survey of 60 employers who preferred English fluency. Both use personal experience as evidence. The exam asks you to evaluate which argument is stronger, not which conclusion you prefer.
1. Evaluate the strength of each writer's evidence and explain why 'which is stronger' cannot be settled by the anecdotes alone.
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Writer A's evidence is a single school in a single decade, with a pass rate that may reflect selection, teaching quality, or exam difficulty rather than language of instruction. Writer B's evidence is a survey of 60 employers, which is larger but measures hiring preference, not learning outcomes; preference for English fluency does not show that English-medium schooling from age six produces it. Neither piece isolates the variable it claims to explain, so the anecdotes cannot settle the question. A defensible evaluation says: B's evidence is broader but answers a different question (employer preference versus educational outcome); A's evidence is narrower and retrospective. The stronger argument is the one whose evidence better matches its claim - here, B's claim is about jobs, so employer preference is at least on-topic, while A's claim is about rootedness, which the pass rate does not measure. That is a judgement about relevance, not about which writer you agree with.
2. Both writers use figurative language. Explain how each image does argumentative work and whether it strengthens or weakens the reasoning.
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Writer A's 'a tree without roots falls' frames language as identity and stability, making abandonment of Tamil seem like collapse; the image is vivid but it asserts the conclusion rather than supporting it, since it assumes what must be shown - that Tamil-medium schooling is what creates the roots. Writer B uses no single image but a market metaphor implied by 'necessary for jobs', framing education as investment with a return; this makes the claim measurable but narrows schooling to employability and ignores other outcomes. Both images strengthen persuasion and weaken reasoning, because each smuggles in an assumption. A strong answer names the assumption behind each image and says the images are rhetorically effective but not evidential, so they should not be counted as support when weighing the arguments.