PrepTest 122, Section 1, Question 25
Gas station owner: Increased fuel efficiency reduces air(65 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the gas(8 more words not shown)
- Apresumes, without providing(16 more words not shown)
- Bconcludes, on the(19 more words not shown)
- Cdraws a conclusion(15 more words not shown)
- Dpresupposes the truth(7 more words not shown)
- Epresumes, without providing(13 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if we improve the engine instead of shrinking the car?
The gas station owner gives us reasons to want better fuel efficiency: less pollution and less dependence on imported oil. Getting more miles from the same amount of fuel could help with both. Some people propose achieving that by making cars smaller.
Then comes a real concern about that proposal: smaller cars offer less protection in collisions. Let's accept the owner's judgment that the efficiency gain isn't worth that added risk. That could be a reason to reject making cars smaller. Why reject improving fuel efficiency altogether?
What we’re looking for
An engine that used fuel more efficiently might let us keep the car's size and protection. We don't have to establish that such an improvement is available. The point is that the owner has considered one way of reaching the goal and hasn't ruled out other ways. For the flaw question, look for the jump from rejecting this method to abandoning the entire goal.
Working the answers
- A
Making accidents less likely might be worth considering, but the owner doesn't have to assume that improvement is impossible. Accidents could become less frequent while small cars still offered less protection when a collision occurred. Some improvement in safety also wouldn't necessarily make the tradeoff worthwhile.
A therefore goes beyond what the argument commits to. Our clearer objection allows the owner's concern about small cars to stand: perhaps we can improve fuel efficiency without shrinking cars at all.
- BCorrect
The “means” is making cars smaller; the “end” is greater fuel efficiency. The owner rejects that means because of its safety cost, then concludes that manufacturers should not pursue the end. But rejecting one route doesn't rule out a different route that avoids the same cost. Improving an engine is the kind of alternative the argument needs to address.
- C
One premise is already a value judgment: greater efficiency isn't worth the added risk to human lives. So the support isn't entirely factual. The issue isn't simply moving from facts to a recommendation; it is expanding a judgment about one unsafe method into a recommendation against the whole goal.
- D
The owner offers reasons about safety and the value of the tradeoff. Those reasons don't merely repeat the conclusion that manufacturers should stop seeking greater efficiency. They fail to establish that broad conclusion, but an unsupported jump isn't the same as using the conclusion as its own support.
- E
This puts the “only way” issue at the wrong connection. The argument doesn't need fuel efficiency to be the sole way to reduce pollution. It needs making cars smaller to be the only acceptable route to greater fuel efficiency for its rejection of small cars to justify abandoning that goal. Other ways to reduce pollution would leave that central gap untouched.
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