PrepTest 154, Section 4, Question 23

What we’re looking for

Working the answers

• A
  Correct

  At first, significantly may make this sound stronger than the conclusion, which says more dangerous without giving a number. But focus on the connection the answer supplies. Ordinary talking during a difficult situation raises accident risk; useful warnings are excepted.

  The passenger usually avoids the risky behavior in those moments by becoming quiet or offering a helpful warning. The person on the phone cannot immediately recognize when to do that. This connects the difference described in the evidence to the difference in danger claimed in the conclusion. Without a meaningful risk from the continued talking, that explanation would lose its force.

  A doesn't establish that having a passenger carries no risk. It identifies why the contrasting behavior during a difficult driving situation matters to the expert's comparison.

• B

  This compares talking with a passenger to not conversing at all. Our argument compares talking with a passenger to talking on a phone. A passenger conversation could be riskier than silence and still be less risky than a phone conversation. B's reassurance about the silent baseline isn't required.

  One tempting way to rescue B is to imagine a driver hanging up the phone when the road gets difficult. Now the phone case becomes silence. But that adds a scenario the expert didn't give us and changes the comparison. We shouldn't supply that extra story to make B fit.

• C

  What drivers believe about phone calls isn't the same as the actual risk. They could believe phone conversations are harmless or believe they are dangerous, and the expert's explanation about the conversation partner's awareness would be unchanged. The argument doesn't require this belief about safety.

• D

  This suggests that even helpful warnings can create distraction. That would raise a question about one of the passenger's supposed advantages; it isn't an assumption needed to support the expert's account of that advantage. The argument doesn't depend on helpful warnings being just as likely to distract as to help.

• E

  Read the kind of passenger specified: one who continues speaking during difficult situations. That's different from the passenger in the evidence, who usually becomes quiet or gives warnings. The argument doesn't require phone conversations to be no more dangerous than conversations with this passenger who keeps talking. Its comparison relies on how passengers usually adjust their behavior. E doesn't supply the needed connection between that adjustment and safety.