PrepTest 111, Section 4, Question 13
Mayor: The law prohibiting pedestrians from crossing against(70 more words not shown)
The mayor's argument is flawed(2 more words not shown)
- Atakes for granted(16 more words not shown)
- Buses the word(14 more words not shown)
- Cignores the possibility(20 more words not shown)
- Dfails to consider(15 more words not shown)
- Eprovides no evidence(13 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What about people who sometimes obey the law?
The mayor says the law does no good because the people who always violate it aren't deterred. That group alone can't settle the question. What about people who follow it? The mayor addresses them next, saying they would never cross against a red light even without the law.
But those two groups don't have to include everyone. Someone might cross against a red light when in a hurry, yet wait at other times because of the law. Perhaps the possibility of a ticket sometimes changes that person's decision, even though it doesn't stop every violation. The law would deter some prohibited behavior without turning that person into someone who always complies.
What we’re looking for
The flaw question asks what the mayor has overlooked. I'd look for that missing middle group. Evidence that a law doesn't change the behavior of people at either extreme doesn't establish that it never changes anyone's behavior.
Working the answers
- A
The mayor's argument concerns people crossing streets on foot. It doesn't depend on most motorists obeying their own red-light rule. Drivers might obey or disobey while we still ask whether this pedestrian rule ever deters a pedestrian from crossing.
- B
'Law' refers to the rule prohibiting pedestrians from crossing against red lights throughout the argument. The mayor doesn't change its meaning to reach the conclusion. The problem is the incomplete account of whom that same law might influence.
- C
The mayor treats deterrence as something a useful law needs, not as something that guarantees a law is useful. The possibility that a deterrent law could nevertheless be useless is compatible with that rule. The mayor's attempt is to show that this law deters nobody. We should challenge that unsupported claim, as D does, rather than object to a guarantee the mayor never makes.
- DCorrect
Occasional violators don't fit either extreme. They aren't the people who invariably violate the law, and they aren't the people who would never cross against red lights anyway. The law might deter them on some occasions.
If it does, the mayor hasn't established the lack of deterrence used to support the conclusion. A law doesn't have to stop every violation by a person to influence some of that person's behavior. This is the group the argument leaves out.
- E
A safety comparison could matter in a broader discussion about this law. But the mayor's stated test concerns whether the law deters the behavior it prohibits. Establishing that crossing on red is dangerous wouldn't tell us whether people are deterred; failing to establish the danger doesn't identify the missing group in the deterrence argument.
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