PrepTest 130, Section 3, Question 22
Columnist: Several recent studies show, and insurance statistics(39 more words not shown)
The columnist's reasoning is most(8 more words not shown)
- Arelies on sources(9 more words not shown)
- Bpresumes, without providing(15 more words not shown)
- Cdoes not adequately(16 more words not shown)
- Dignores the possibility(20 more words not shown)
- Eignores possible differences(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A higher death count doesn't necessarily mean more danger each time someone crosses. How many people cross with the light, and how many cross against it?
The difference could be enormous. Suppose a city records 100 deaths out of a million crossings with the light, compared with 50 deaths out of 5,000 crossings against it. The first death count is larger, but its rate is only 0.01 percent; the second rate is 1 percent. Crossing against the light would be much riskier in this example despite producing fewer deaths.
The same point applies to comparing places. A large state could record more deaths than a small state simply because many more people live there. We wouldn't infer that moving from California to Wyoming makes someone safer merely from those totals. We would need to account for the populations and circumstances.
What we’re looking for
The columnist makes exactly the jump those examples warn against: from fewer deaths while crossing against the light to a lower risk. For the flaw question, we need the missing comparison of how often the two actions occur. The reported counts could be accurate while the risk conclusion is false.
Working the answers
- A
We aren't given a reason to think the studies or insurance statistics are biased. More importantly, accepting their figures doesn't fix the inference. Accurate death totals still don't tell us the relative risk without the corresponding crossing totals.
- B
The specific problem is not an attempt to turn an observed correlation into a causal explanation. The author treats raw counts of fatalities as sufficient to compare the danger of two actions. The figures could accurately describe deaths during each action while giving a misleading picture of the chance of death per crossing.
- C
We don't need a common cause of two correlated events to explain the flaw. A difference in how frequently people perform the actions could produce the reported count difference even when crossing against the light is riskier. C doesn't identify that missing frequency information.
- D
Both the evidence and the conclusion concern North American cities. The author doesn't take findings from that environment and make a claim about every other setting. Driving or crossing conditions elsewhere could differ without addressing the error in this comparison.
- ECorrect
The argument ignores possible differences in the frequency of crossing with and against the light. If crossing with the light happens vastly more often, it could produce more total fatalities despite a much lower risk on each occasion. As the million-versus-5,000 example shows, we need the denominator as well as the count of deaths.
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