PrepTest 113, Section 4, Question 24
Robert: Speed limits on residential streets in Crownsbury(72 more words not shown)
The relationship of Sheila's statement(7 more words not shown)
- Araises the objection(19 more words not shown)
- Bargues that the(13 more words not shown)
- Cdefends an alternative(12 more words not shown)
- Dconcedes that the(20 more words not shown)
- Echarges that Robert's(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe there is another way to slow the traffic. Cameras, for example, come to mind when Robert says the city doesn't have enough police to patrol every street. But his proposal is speed bumps and warning signs. Would those work, or would some drivers keep speeding over them?
Sheila takes up that possibility. A driver hitting a bump too fast could lose control, creating another danger for people nearby. The proposal may be intended to protect pedestrians, but she argues it has a harmful side effect of its own.
What we’re looking for
For the question about how her argument responds to Robert's, that's my prediction: she challenges his recommendation by pointing out a possible bad consequence. We can describe her objection without proving that it defeats the proposal overall. The task is to identify the move she makes, not decide which traffic policy the city should adopt.
Working the answers
- A
Sheila doesn't deny that speeding drivers pose a serious danger. She objects to the proposed response to that danger. This answer would fit a speaker saying, “You're making too much of the speeding problem,” which isn't her claim.
- BCorrect
Robert proposes a remedy for one safety problem, and Sheila identifies a safety problem that remedy could create. Losing control when hitting a speed bump is the undesirable side effect.
She doesn't have to claim that no driver would slow down or that every bump would cause a crash. Her response is that the proposed solution could have harmful consequences that Robert hasn't addressed.
- C
Cameras were an alternative we might think of while reading, but Sheila doesn't propose them—or any other course of action. Be careful not to give a speaker our own response. Her argument says why she opposes Robert's idea without offering a preferred replacement.
- D
Sheila doesn't concede that the bumps would effectively solve the problem. Nor does she say they would work for a different reason from Robert's. She identifies a danger created by installing them. D turns her objection into an endorsement with a revised explanation.
- E
“No net effect” would mean the proposal leaves the problem unchanged overall. Sheila doesn't calculate a balance of benefits and harms or conclude that they cancel exactly. A harmful side effect could coexist with an overall improvement or an overall worsening. Her point is that the side effect is a reason to oppose the proposal, not that its total effect would be zero.
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