Mark and Meg Are Two Eighth-Grade Students Who Have Just

question 60

Multiple Choice

Mark and Meg are two eighth-grade students who have just failed a math test. Considering gender differences in students' explanations for failure, how are the two students likely to explain their poor test performance?

• A) Mark will think he failed because he "just can't do math." Meg will think, "I got an F because I didn't work hard enough on this subject-I could have studied more."
• B) Mark will attribute his failure to a lack of effort, thinking, "I didn't study very hard because I don't care about getting good grades." Meg will think, "I'm just not very good at math."
• C) Mark will think that he isn't very lucky when it comes to tests, and Meg will think that she failed because she didn't have friends that could help her study.
• D) Mark will think, "I got an F because I'm not smart enough to do this math." Meg will think, "I failed because the teacher hates me and the test wasn't fair."

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Definitions:

Connective

A term used in mathematics and logic to denote operations that combine statements, propositions, or terms.

Conditional Statement

A logical statement that has two parts: a hypothesis (if) and a consequent (then), where the consequent follows logically from the hypothesis.

Antecedent

The condition in a conditional statement that if true, may lead to the consequence or conclusion.

Consequent

The outcome or result in a conditional statement, typically following the word "then" in an "if...then..." structure.