The use of automobile safety seats by children aged 4 and under has nearly doubled in the past 8 years. ██ ██ █████ ████ ████ ████████ ███ █████████ █████ ██████████ ████ █████████ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ █ ███ █████ ███ ████ ██████ █████ ██████ ██ ████ ████████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ████ █ ██████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██████████ █████████ ████ ██ ██ ███████ ██████ ████ ███████
The stimulus starts by telling us that the rate at which children aged 4 and under use safety seats has doubled within the last 8 years. Good to hear! The next sentence begins with the claim that this increased usage of safety seats has prevented child fatalities. This is the conclusion of our argument. The sentence continues by conceding that it is true that child fatalities have risen by 10% during the same period that safety seat usage has increased, but attributes this to a 20% increase in the number of serious accident.
This author’s conclusion is that the safety seats are working—the increase in their usage has prevented fatalities. However, the fact that child fatalities have actually increased during the exact same period is a big problem for this position. The author’s defends his safety seats are working conclusion by pointing to the increase in accidents—it’s not that safety seats aren’t preventing fatalities, its just that there are a lot more opportunities for people to die. The issue with this defense is we have no idea much of the increase in serious automobile accidents involve children.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ █████████
Some of the ██████████ ██████ █████ █████████ ███ ████████ █████ █ ████████ ██ ██ ████ █████ ███ █████ ███████ ███ ███ ██ ██
Irrelevant. We are interested in how the number of children aged 4 and under killed could have increased in the same period that safety seat usage increased and prevented fatalities.
The proportion of ███████ ██████████ █████████ █████████ █████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ████████ ████ ███ ████ █ ██████
This strengthens the argument by making the 20% increase in serious accidents a much better defense of the safety seats are working conclusion. If serious accidents went up 20% while the proportion involving children remained constant, but child fatalities only increased by 10%, it seems that the children are dying at a lower rate than would be expected, which in turn suggests that the safety seats really are having an effect.
Children are taking ████ █████ ██ ████ █████ ████ ████ ████ █ █████ ████ ███ ███ ███████ █████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ████ ███ ████████ █████████
If they are in cars the same amount of time then nothing has changed in terms of their chance of being involved in accidents.
The sharpest increase ██ ███ ███ ██ ██████████ ██████ █████ ████ ███ ████ █ █████ ███ ████ ███ ████████ ████ ███ ███ ██ ██
We are concerned with children aged 4 and under as a whole, the varying usage of seatbelts between subsets of children aged 4 and under has no impact on our argument
The number of ██████████ █████ ██████ ████████ ██ ██████████ █████████ ████ ██ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ████ █ ██████
If the adult fatalities increased at the same rate as the child fatalities while the safety seat usage increased, it suggests the doubling of safety seats had no impact on child fatalities.
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