PrepTest 134, Section 3, Question 16
Editorial: Cell-phone usage on buses and trains is(62 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(30 more words not shown)
- AIt is the(5 more words not shown)
- BIt is a(7 more words not shown)
- CIt is a(17 more words not shown)
- DIt is a(20 more words not shown)
- EIt provides background(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What kind of phone use are we talking about? A loud conversation could annoy a seatmate; a silent text message might not. And even if something is annoying, that alone doesn't settle whether allowing it is a bad policy.
Those are reasonable questions to ask while reading. But the author does give a specific reason to worry about airplanes: passengers sit close together and often can't move away. That is supposed to establish that phone use would be more upsetting there than on buses and trains. The greater annoyance, in turn, supports the author's objection to allowing phones on airplanes.
What we’re looking for
So the sentence we're asked about sits in the middle of the reasoning. Why would phone use be worse on planes? Tight seating and difficulty moving away. Why are the proposals ill-advised? Phone use would be worse on planes. The sentence answers one question and supplies a reason for the next. Identifying that role doesn't require agreeing that annoyance settles the policy issue.
Working the answers
- A
The author wants us to believe that the proposals to allow phones on airplanes are ill-advised. The comparison of annoyance supports that judgment; it isn't the final judgment itself. Calling it the main conclusion stops the reasoning one step too early.
- B
The author endorses this claim and gives reasons for it. The passage doesn't try to show that phone use would be no more upsetting on planes. The target of the criticism is the proposal to allow phones, not the comparison of how upsetting they would be.
- C
This adds an extra step that isn't present. The statement about greater annoyance directly supports the policy conclusion. It doesn't first establish another supporting claim that then leads to that conclusion. The seating facts are farther down the chain; the statement we're asked about is what those facts support.
- DCorrect
The claim is supported by the tight seating and the difficulty of moving away. It then directly supports the conclusion that allowing phones is ill-advised. That's why it can be both a conclusion and a supporting reason: it receives support from one part of the argument and passes that support to the main point.
- E
This isn't incidental background. Without the comparison, the author would have told us that phone use annoys bus and train passengers without explaining why the concern is especially strong on airplanes. The statement forms part of the route to the policy judgment.
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