LR Drill Set 13, Question 10
McBride: The proposed new fuel-efficiency standards, if implemented,(98 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(11 more words not shown)
- Ademonstrating that McBride's(3 more words not shown)
- Bchallenging the unstated(9 more words not shown)
- Cshifting the perspective(9 more words not shown)
- Draising doubts about(8 more words not shown)
- Edemonstrating that it(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A bigger car might protect its own occupants while making a collision more dangerous for someone else.
McBride looks at the people in the subcompact when it collides with a full-size car. Those people would face less risk of serious injury if their car were full-size too. That supports a concern about discouraging the manufacture of larger cars.
I could ask whether better fuel efficiency is worth some safety tradeoff. But there's also a question inside the safety discussion itself: what happens to the mix of collisions if fewer full-size cars are on the road?
Leggett changes that comparison. Instead of focusing on protection for the people inside the smaller car when it hits a larger one, Leggett compares a collision involving any full-size car with one involving none. On that comparison, having a full-size car involved makes serious injury to someone more likely. Discouraging those cars can therefore look like a safety advantage.
What we’re looking for
That doesn't establish an instant disappearance of all large cars; we could still ask about the transition. But the question asks how Leggett responds, not whether every policy detail is settled. I'd describe the response as bringing a different safety comparison into view.
Working the answers
- A
McBride's claims can coexist. A person in a small car might be safer in a larger car during a collision with another large car, while collisions involving large cars create more risk overall than collisions involving no large cars. Leggett doesn't show that McBride makes claims that cannot both be true.
- B
Leggett doesn't introduce a third category of car or accuse McBride of ignoring medium-sized cars. The change concerns whose risk and which collisions are compared. We can't invent an objection about categories that the response doesn't make.
- CCorrect
McBride focuses on the protection a full-size car gives its occupants in a particular collision. Leggett focuses on whether someone will be seriously injured when a full-size car is involved at all.
From the first perspective, more full-size cars sound protective. From the second, fewer full-size cars mean fewer collisions involving the higher-risk category. Leggett can accept McBride's fact while using a broader comparison to support the opposite policy. That's a shift in perspective on safety.
- D
Leggett doesn't say McBride's comparison is inaccurate. There is no challenge to the claim about people in a subcompact colliding with a full-size car. Instead, Leggett supplies another comparison that changes how the policy's safety effect should be evaluated.
- E
McBride wants the standards opposed. Nothing in Leggett's reply says that opposition is impossible or that the standards must inevitably be enacted. Leggett argues the proposed course is undesirable on safety grounds, not that it can't be followed.
More Strategy of Argument questions
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- Logical Reasoning Drill Set 13, Question 1Sufficient Assumption
- Logical Reasoning Drill Set 13, Question 2Parallel Reasoning
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