PrepTest 101, Section 2, Question 14
Steven: The allowable blood alcohol level for drivers(79 more words not shown)
Steven and Miguel's statements provide(19 more words not shown)
- ASocial drinkers who(10 more words not shown)
- BThere is a(15 more words not shown)
- CA driver with(16 more words not shown)
- DSome drivers whose(16 more words not shown)
- EA driver with(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Would cutting the limit actually make the highways much safer?
Steven thinks so. His proposed change targets social drinkers: a lower allowable blood alcohol level would deter them from drinking and driving, and he expects a significant safety gain. I would want to know whether those drivers would change their behavior and how much danger they currently create. Simply changing a rule doesn't tell us how much difference it will make.
Miguel says the big danger comes from heavy drinkers who already drive at twice the current limit. Those people are already breaking the rule. Cutting the limit doesn't directly solve that problem, so he predicts little improvement in highway safety.
What we’re looking for
That gives us the disagreement to look for: how much safety would improve by deterring social drinkers. Be careful not to turn Miguel's response into a blanket claim that the proposal must be rejected. He says it would do little good. He doesn't explicitly say that even a small benefit would make the change not worth doing.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Steven's predicted significant improvement treats social drinkers who drive as a substantial part of the danger. Deterring them matters enough, on his account, to make the highways significantly safer.
Miguel takes the other side of that assessment. He says the proposal would have little effect because the important danger comes from the heavy drinkers it doesn't address. The disagreement is about whether social drinkers pose a substantial threat, not whether they could pose any threat at all. A captures that difference in the importance the two speakers give this group.
- B
Neither speaker lays out a direct relationship between a driver's blood alcohol level and that driver's ability to drive safely. They discuss two groups and the likely effect of a policy. That doesn't establish opposing positions on the general correlation B describes. We can't infer a disagreement merely because this is a question related to alcohol and driving.
- C
Miguel expressly identifies heavy drinkers above the current limit as dangerous. Steven says nothing that denies that danger. His concern about social drinkers could coexist perfectly well with concern about heavy drinkers. We don't have one speaker accepting this claim and the other rejecting it.
- D
Some danger isn't the same as a substantial threat. Miguel could agree that some drivers below the current limit create a little danger while still saying that targeting them would produce only a small improvement. Steven's argument allows such danger too. D doesn't capture the difference in how much danger they attribute to social drinkers.
- E
No danger is stronger than Miguel's position. He can think the proposal would have little effect without thinking that every driver just over the proposed new limit is perfectly safe. Steven would object to treating those drivers as harmless, but Miguel hasn't committed himself to the zero-danger claim needed to disagree with Steven on E.
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