Assertion (A) : Students are more likely to do well and stay in school if they…

Concept: An Assertion-Reason item requires two independent checks: (1) is each statement (A) and (R) true on its own, and (2) does (R) name the actual causal/explanatory mechanism behind (A) — two true statements can still be logically unconnected.

Application: (A) reflects a well-established finding in educational psychology: a student's sense of belonging and emotional attachment to school predicts better academic performance and retention (fewer dropouts). (R) states the general principle that emotions significantly shape the learning process — they influence attention, motivation, engagement, and memory encoding. Because emotional attachment to school is itself an affective/emotional state, (R) supplies the exact mechanism through which that attachment translates into the outcomes (A) describes: feeling emotionally connected sustains motivation and engagement, which in turn improves performance and keeps students in school. So (R) is not a coincidental fact sitting beside (A) — it explains why (A) holds.

Cross-check: Ruling out the other readings by value:

• "True but not the explanation" would require (R) to describe a channel unrelated to attachment/belonging — but (R) describes exactly the affective pathway operating in (A), so this reading understates the connection.

• "(R) is false" would require emotions to have no bearing on learning — contrary to well-documented affective and motivational theories of learning.

• "Both are false" would require even the belonging-outcome link in (A) to be baseless — contrary to extensive school-belonging and dropout-prevention research.

Result: Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) correctly explains (A).