PrepTest 120, Section 1, Question 1
While it might be expected that those neighborhoods(37 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(5 more words not shown)
- Aattempts to support(8 more words not shown)
- Bfails to consider(12 more words not shown)
- Cdraws a general(8 more words not shown)
- Dfails to consider(22 more words not shown)
- Etakes for granted(21 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why are there so many police officers in those neighborhoods? Maybe that's where the crime was in the first place.
The statistics tell us that neighborhoods with the heaviest patrols also have the most crime. Fine. But suppose a neighborhood had 100 units of crime before extra officers arrived and 90 afterward. It could still have more crime than other neighborhoods, even though the officers helped reduce it.
That's the comparison the conclusion skips. Having a high crime rate now doesn't establish that police failed to bring it down. We need to consider how bad things were before the extra patrols, or how bad they would be without them.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, I'd look for that overlooked explanation: the crime brought the police to these neighborhoods. The police could then help while the neighborhoods remained relatively dangerous.
Working the answers
- A
The author relies on statistics, not an emotional plea. An appeal to emotion might ask us to accept a policy because we're frightened or feel sorry for someone. Here, the mistake is in what the author thinks the relationship between patrols and crime proves.
- B
A criminal could commit crimes in several neighborhoods, but that doesn't tell us whether police reduced crime in any of them. Moving between neighborhoods leaves our objection intact: a heavily patrolled area might have been even more dangerous without the officers.
- C
We haven't been told that the sample is small. The evidence might cover a great many neighborhoods. Even an enormous study showing the stated relationship would leave open the possibility that high crime prompted the patrols and then decreased. We don't need to question the amount of data to question the conclusion drawn from it.
- DCorrect
The police might be there because the neighborhood already had a relatively high crime rate. That explains why heavy patrols and high crime appear together without showing that the patrols accomplished nothing. Our neighborhood could drop from 100 to 90 units of crime and still rank above other neighborhoods. The author overlooks that possibility.
- E
Whether another use of the money would work better is a different question. Perhaps a social program would reduce crime even more than patrols would. That would not show that patrols produce no decrease at all. The argument doesn't need to assume anything about the best way to spend public money to make its stated claim.
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