Self-study
In 1955, legislation in a certain country gave the government increased control over industrial workplace safety conditions. █████ ███ █████████ ██████████ ██ ████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ████ █ ██████ ████ ██████ █ ███████ ██████ ███ █████████ █████ █████ ███ ████████████ ██████████ ███ █████████ ███████ ██████ ██████ ██████ █████████ ███████████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that legislation giving the government more control over workplace safety conditions has caused an increase in worker safety in high-risk industries. This is based on the decreased likelihood of serious injury in those industries since the year the legislation was introduced.
Notable Assumptions
The author concludes the legislation has caused the lower risk of serious injury, just from a correlation between these two things. This means she assumes that there wasn’t some other factor occurring at the same time that caused the lower risk of serious injury, instead of the legislation causing it. The author also assumes that "overall worker safety" increased as the risk of serious injury decreased, though she hasn't told us anything about the risk of less serious injuries.
7.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██████
a
Because of technological ███████████ ████ ██████████ ██ ███ █████████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████ ███████████ ███████████ ███████ ███████ ███ █████ █████████ ██ ████ ███ ██ █████
This weakens the argument. It suggests that the reduced risk of serious injury since 1955 is actually due to technological innovation, and not to the legislation introduced in 1955.
Alternate explanation
Alternate explanation
Weaken: Introduce or support an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
Strengthen: Helps to eliminate an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
b
Most of the ████████████ ████████ ████ ████████ ██████ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ █████████████
This doesn't weaken the argument. Perhaps the government regulated in such a way that reduced the chance of carelessness leading to injury. If that was the case, then the author’s argument remains intact.
c
The annual number ██ ████████████ ████████ ███ █████████ █████ ███ ███████████ ████ ███████
This doesn't weaken the argument, because we're not interested in the annual number of injuries overall. The argument is focused on high-risk industries, not all workplaces. Even if C reflected some increase in the annual number of injuries in high-risk industries, that wouldn't tell us anything about the overall safety of individual workers. Maybe the number of workers in these industries has drastically increased, so even though they are each individually safer, the overall number of injuries per year has gone up.
Illusory inconsistency
Illusory inconsistency
Answer is attractive because it seems to (but doesn't actually) contradict the premises or conclusion.
d
The number of ████████████ ████████ █████████ ██████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ █████████ ███ █████████ ████████ █████ █████
Irrelevant. The argument is only about high-risk industries, not non-high-risk industries.
Illusory inconsistency
Illusory inconsistency
Answer is attractive because it seems to (but doesn't actually) contradict the premises or conclusion.
e
Workplace safety conditions ██ ███ ██████████ ████ ████████ ████████ █████ █████
This doesn't weaken the argument. For all we know, workplace safety conditions have improved in all industries because the government began regulating across all industries. We're looking to undermine the idea that government legislation specifically targeting the high-risk industries improved worker safety in those industries. E doesn't give us a reason to doubt that claim.
Failed alternate explanation
Failed alternate explanation
Weaken Qs: Answers that try to introduce an alternate explanation, but fall short, or try to explain a different phenomenon.
Strengthen Qs: Answers that try to eliminate an alternate explanation, but fall short, or try to eliminate an explanation for a different phenomenon.