PrepTest 113, Section 2, Question 17
A safety report indicates that, on average, traffic(57 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(19 more words not shown)
- ATwo years ago(15 more words not shown)
- BThe city now(17 more words not shown)
- CIn the time(19 more words not shown)
- DBecause the city's(17 more words not shown)
- EIn the last(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A seat belt law on the books doesn't tell us what changed on the road. Did drivers actually start wearing belts? Did anything else change at the same time?
The average decline elsewhere is useful background, but it doesn't guarantee a seven percent decline in every city. It also doesn't establish that the laws alone caused the entire decline. For this city, I'd first consider a failure to comply with the law or some added danger that could offset a benefit. Perhaps drivers weren't wearing belts, or perhaps higher speed limits made accidents more dangerous.
What we’re looking for
This is an exception question. Four choices help explain why this city's annual death count stayed the same. We want the one that doesn't help resolve that contrast. A possible explanation is enough; a choice needn't prove that it was the actual cause.
Working the answers
- A
Higher speed limits could have increased the danger of driving at the same time the belt law was supposed to improve safety. That supplies a possible offset: even if more belt use helped, another change could have worked in the opposite direction. A needn't show that every driver sped up or that the speed change exactly canceled the benefit. It helps explain why the total might not have fallen.
- B
The city changed what it counts. A total that used to exclude pedestrian deaths is being compared with one that includes them. The old categories of deaths could have declined while the newly included pedestrian deaths kept the reported total unchanged. That is a concrete way for the records to hide a safety improvement, so B helps explain the apparent discrepancy.
- C
More traffic creates more opportunities for fatal accidents. Even if a law makes a given amount of driving safer, a large increase in driving could offset that benefit in the annual death count. We haven't proved that safety improved here; C gives a possible reason an improvement wouldn't show up as a lower total. The passage concerns the number of deaths, not a guaranteed death rate per driver.
- D
This matches the compliance concern. Few drivers actually followed the law because it was rarely enforced. Passing a rule has little chance to produce the intended change if people don't change their behavior. D directly explains why the city might fail to receive the benefit associated with belt laws elsewhere.
- ECorrect
This tells us about the people who died, not about how commonly drivers in the city wore belts. Those are different groups. Even if most drivers obeyed the law, the deaths that still occurred could be concentrated among the people who didn't.
Compare D carefully. D says few drivers complied, giving a reason the law might have little practical effect. E says most of the fatalities involved people without belts. That could be true whether the total number of deaths fell or stayed the same. It doesn't tell us what prevented a decline over the two years, so it leaves the contrast unexplained.
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