Question

11 and if they had a job, graduates who performed well on the cla were half as likely to lose that job, compared to those who performed less well.
12 but many students make it through four years of college without substantially improving the skills cla measures.
13 if the cla were re - scaled to a one - hundred - point scale, approximately one - third of students would not improve more than one point over four years of college.
14 this is not only low in absolute terms but also in comparison to historic performance. the average growth observed in our study is half of what was observed when growth on similar measures was assessed in earlier decades.
15 limited development of general collegiate skills — critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing — may not be surprising given that students invest little time in their academic pursuits.
low dedication to academic pursuits
16 seniors in aspiring adults adrift, as well as sophomores in our earlier study, academically adrift (which followed over 2,300 undergraduates through the first two years of college), spent very little time studying alone — on average little more than an hour per day — and faced limited reading and writing demands.
17 american college students’ dedication to academic pursuits has shown a considerable drop since the 1960s when being a full - time college student meant spending 15 hours in class and 25 hours studying. by the early 2000s, students still spent 15 hours in class but devoted on average only 12 hours to studying.
paragraph 15

1. how does paragraph 15 contribute to the section “critical thinking skills are crucial”?

Explanation:

Paragraph 15 links the limited development of critical - thinking and other collegiate skills to students' low investment of time in academic pursuits. It supports the section's claim about the importance of critical - thinking skills by highlighting a possible cause for their lack of development.

Answer:

It explains that the limited development of general collegiate skills like critical thinking may be due to students investing little time in academic pursuits, thus supporting the idea that these skills are crucial and not being adequately developed.