PrepTest 137, Section 4, Question 8
Principle: If the burden of a proposed policy(79 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(12 more words not shown)
- AIndividuals with low(21 more words not shown)
- BRoad maintenance is(13 more words not shown)
- CCars now cost(15 more words not shown)
- DPeople with low(14 more words not shown)
- EAmong drivers, those(21 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What about people driving older cars?
The city's reassurance is that cars are better protected against salt corrosion now. That sounds useful for someone with a newer car. It may be much less reassuring for someone whose car predates those improvements.
The principle gives us a specific test: reject a policy change if its burden falls disproportionately on people with low incomes. Any harm to anyone isn't enough for this rule. We need a reason this change would hit that group especially hard.
What we’re looking for
So I'd connect the age of the cars to the incomes of their owners. If people with lower incomes are more likely to have older cars, reintroducing salt could expose them to more of the corrosion problem. That would explain why newer cars' improved protection doesn't settle whether this policy should go ahead.
Working the answers
- A
Greater reliance on public transportation and less driving don't establish that low-income people would bear more of the damage to cars. If anything, this makes the stated corrosion problem look less concentrated on that group. It moves away from the connection the principle requires.
- B
This is tempting because it explicitly gives us a disproportionate burden on people with low incomes. But is that burden caused or increased by the proposed change? We aren't told that switching to rock salt would increase road-maintenance spending or sales taxes.
The maintenance budget already exists. Rock salt might cost the same as the current method, or even less. B describes how road maintenance is funded without showing that this particular policy change adds a burden through that funding. That's the missing step; we don't need to dispute the answer's claim about sales taxes.
- C
More expensive cars don't by themselves establish which income group would bear the burden of using salt. This tells us about prices generally, not about who has vehicles vulnerable to corrosion or how this policy affects the groups differently.
- DCorrect
This supplies the predicted connection. People with low incomes are more likely to purchase older vehicles, which are less likely to have the improved protection the city cites. The salt's corrosive effects would therefore be especially concerning for that group. That supports applying the principle against a change with a disproportionate burden on people with low incomes.
- E
Less use of treated roads means less exposure to the stated source of damage. That doesn't support the claim that low-income drivers would bear a disproportionate burden from adding salt to those roads. It points in the opposite direction.
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