PrepTest 136, Section 2, Question 1
Mayor: There has been a long debate in(66 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the mayor's(11 more words not shown)
- AIt bases a(13 more words not shown)
- BIt takes for(9 more words not shown)
- CIt fails to(17 more words not shown)
- DIt fails to(13 more words not shown)
- EIt presents a(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why are those our only two choices?
Traffic may become a serious problem. Let's grant the mayor that doing nothing would leave the roads in gridlock. That gives us a reason to act, but why does it give us a reason to adopt this particular plan?
Maybe the city could add lanes to existing roads. Maybe a charge for driving in the city would reduce traffic. Perhaps several new roads would work better than the proposed expressway. We don't know whether those ideas would succeed. The point is that the mayor hasn't considered them before announcing that the choice is the expressway or nothing.
What we’re looking for
If those really were the only options, eliminating inaction would leave the expressway. But that's exactly what we should question. The flaw answer should describe the unsupported restriction to two choices, not deny that the city has a traffic problem.
Working the answers
- A
A conservative estimate gives us a relatively cautious picture of future traffic. If even that picture produces gridlock, a higher estimate would make the need to act more pressing. We can accept the need to do something while questioning whether the mayor's plan is the thing to do.
- B
These options really are mutually exclusive: building the expressway is doing something, so the city cannot both build it and do nothing. The problem is whether the two options cover every possible response. Two choices can be incompatible with each other and still leave out several other choices.
- C
A slower rate of increase is still an increase. It doesn't mean traffic starts falling. And a change after ten years wouldn't prevent the gridlock that the mayor says would already exist by then. This doesn't identify the jump from a traffic problem to the mayor's particular solution.
- D
The mayor doesn't need to calculate the economic cost of gridlock to give us a reason to avoid it. More information about that cost still wouldn't establish that a new expressway is the only workable response.
- ECorrect
The mayor presents the plan and doing nothing as the entire menu without explaining why other approaches have been ruled out. Adding lanes, managing demand, or building different roads might offer another response. Rejecting inaction doesn't establish the mayor's plan until those other possibilities have been addressed.
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