PrepTest 127, Section 1, Question 24
Provinces and states with stringent car safety requirements,(43 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(17 more words not shown)
- AAnnual safety inspections(10 more words not shown)
- BDrivers often become(10 more words not shown)
- CThe roads in(21 more words not shown)
- DPsychological studies show(24 more words not shown)
- EProvinces and states(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
More safety requirements go along with more accidents per kilometer driven. That does not immediately show that the requirements cause accidents. Maybe these places adopted stricter rules because driving there was especially dangerous to begin with.
The experts think stricter rules reduce accident rates. Could that be true even while the stricter places remain worse than the others? Yes. We need to compare a place with the rules to what that same place would be like without them, not assume that every place started with the same danger.
Imagine two regions measured over the same distance driven. One would have ten accidents without strict rules and eight with them. Another has only four under looser rules. The strict region still has the higher rate, eight versus four, but its rules reduced its own rate from ten to eight. Those are hypothetical numbers showing how the two observations could fit.
What we’re looking for
For the reconciliation, I would look for a reason the places with strict requirements are more dangerous independently of those requirements. That could explain both their higher observed rates and the experts' belief that the requirements still help.
Working the answers
- A
Replacing old tires could explain one safety benefit of inspections. But it does not explain why the places requiring those inspections nevertheless have higher accident rates. It addresses why the rules might help without accounting for the apparently contrary comparison.
- B
Overconfidence might explain how an inspection could lead someone to drive less carefully. That would support a possible harmful effect of the requirement, rather than explain why experts can reasonably believe the requirement reduces accidents despite the observed rates. It does not reconcile the two sides.
- CCorrect
Congested roads give the strict-requirement regions another source of danger. Their rules could reduce the accident rate while congestion keeps it above the rate in less crowded regions. That is the relationship in our ten-to-eight versus four example: an improvement can be real without bringing a dangerous place below a safer place. C does not have to prove an exact reduction to show why the comparison need not conflict with the experts' belief.
- D
This gives another possible benefit: some seat-belt users may drive less recklessly. Like A, it helps explain why a rule might lower accidents, but leaves the higher rate in strict regions unexplained. We need a fact accounting for why the beneficial rules coexist with that worse comparison.
- E
The reported comparison is accidents per kilometer driven, not total accidents or total kilometers of road. More road length does not by itself explain more accidents for each kilometer people drive. E changes the quantity under discussion instead of accounting for the higher rate.
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