PrepTest 151, Section 2, Question 25
Mayor: Periodically an ice cream company will hold(79 more words not shown)
The claim that when something(21 more words not shown)
- AIt is a(15 more words not shown)
- BIt is a(12 more words not shown)
- CIt helps establish(16 more words not shown)
- DIt is a(10 more words not shown)
- EIt is the(5 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Free ice cream can still cost you an hour.
Imagine waiting an hour for a cone you could otherwise buy for $5. No money changes hands, but that doesn't mean the treat costs you nothing. The mayor uses the long line to draw a broader lesson: make something valuable free, and people overuse it and queue for it.
Does that carry over to the trip to work? Someone can skip an ice cream promotion more easily than skip a job. A road charge might encourage earlier travel, but a commuter might instead pay the toll and sit in the same traffic.
The amount could matter too: a hypothetical $5 charge might be absorbed, while $100 a day could price some drivers out. So I'm not yet convinced that charging automatically fixes rush hour.
What we’re looking for
But we're asked for the role of the general claim, not whether the plan will work. Work backward from the proposal: the mayor wants to charge for rush-hour road use to reduce congestion. The claim about free things producing overuse is offered as a reason that charging will help.
Working the answers
- A
The mayor relies on the claim, rather than rejecting it. The free-ice-cream example supposedly teaches the rule, and the rule is then applied to roads. There is no replacement hypothesis that the mayor adopts after discarding this one.
- B
A concession would grant a point to someone challenging the argument. The mayor doesn't introduce an opponent disputing the analogy and then yield a point to that person. The targeted claim is part of the mayor's own case for charging, not an admission made to a critic.
- C
This is more than a statement that congestion is an important problem. For comparison, saying that ambulances are delayed or that commuters lose productive time would help explain why fixing traffic matters. Those statements wouldn't, by themselves, show that charging drivers would solve it.
The targeted claim does a different job: it offers a general explanation of overuse and queues that the mayor applies to the proposed remedy. It is being offered as evidence for charging, which C expressly denies.
- DCorrect
The claim extends beyond ice cream to something valuable that costs no money, so it is general. The mayor then uses it to support charging for roads: free use supposedly contributes to overconsumption and lines, so imposing a charge is presented as the solution.
We can recognize that supporting role without agreeing that the road case works just like the ice cream case. The statement is a lesson drawn from one example and then used to support the later policy conclusion.
- E
The argument doesn't end with the general observation about free things. It uses that observation to argue for a particular road-charging system. The proposed response to rush-hour congestion is the ultimate point; the targeted statement helps build the case for it.
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