HURRY PLEASE
QUESTION 18.
Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answer.
The following passage is an excerpt of an online article on teens and sleep.
(1) In October 2019, the state of California passed a new law that mandates a change to the starting times for the state’s public schools. (2) The law—which was supported by the California Medical Association, the California Psychiatric Association, the CDC, and the American Academy of Pediatrics—requires middle schools to start no earlier than 8:00 a.m. and high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m.
(3) The law is a state-level solution to a problem that doctors, school administrators, and researchers have been justifiably lamenting for decades: adolescents need eight to ten hours of sleep per night, but more than two thirds of high schoolers get less than that. (4) Even more troubling, about forty percent of students get fewer than six hours. (5) Simply telling teenagers to go to bed earlier isn't effective; teens build up sleep pressure—the regulatory force that builds up and allows a person to both fall and stay asleep—more slowly than adults or younger children. (6) For this reason, they are simply not equipped to fall asleep earlier on command; they are truly designed to go to bed later and sleep later into the morning.
(7) Sleep deprivation among adolescents has been proven to affect overall health, often resulting in weakened immune systems and other problems. (8) It also compromises memory consolidation, thus resulting in decreased overall academic performance as reflected in lower test scores. (9) If that's not enough to support later start times, consider this: one school district that voluntarily implemented the time changes long before the California law reported a 70% reduction in student car crashes. (10) It's tough to argue with data that shows an increase in student safety in addition to an increase in student performance.
(11) Despite this rather obvious data in support of later start times, many school administrators lament the challenges of bus schedules, lunch services, childcare, and even athletic practices, all of which have traditionally been built around much earlier start times than the 8:00 to 8:30 a.m. requirements. (12) But the experts are emphatic in reminding the public that the challenges are worth facing, and the adjusted start times will result in greater health and safety and increased student learning.
The writer is working on a new version of the passage and wants to include an explicit statement of the passage’s thesis.
Which of the following would best serve as a thesis statement for the passage?
A. Despite opposition from some school districts, later start times should be implemented for students.
B. Improving the quality of REM sleep will improve memory and increase students’ academic achievement levels.
C. Later start times for students result in increased safety, not just increased school performance.
D. Not everyone agrees that start times after 8 a.m. for middle and high schools are in everyone’s best interests.
E. Taking the lead on this issue, the state of California is mandating later start times for its public-school students.
