Self-study
Candidate: Support The government spends $500 million more each year promoting highway safety than it spends combating cigarette smoking. ███ ████ ████ ████ ████ ██████ ███ ████ ███████████████ ████████ ████ ███ ██ ███████ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████ ████ █████ ██ ████████ █████ ████ ███████ ██████ ████████ ██ ███████████ █████████
Structure: Comparison and Prediction
The stimulus notes that though more people die from smoking-related diseases every year than from highway accidents, the government spends significantly more money every year to encourage highway safety than to discourage smoking. The author predicts that if the government shifts funds from highway safety programs to anti-smoking programs, the net effect will be to save lives.
Identify Flawed Reasoning Pattern
Let's think about the conclusion here: the government will "save lives" by shifting funds from highway safety programs to antismoking programs. You could read this as a very general statement that "some lives," period, would be saved if the government shifted funds to antismoking programs, or (more likely) as a comparative statement that more lives would be saved, compared to now, if funds were shifted this way.
Notice that either way, a major assumption here is at least that the government can save more lives through its anti-smoking programs than it currently does, and that the number of lives saved through increased funding for antismoking programs will outweigh any lives lost from investing less in the highway safety programs. But what if the government has limited investment in its antismoking programs because it has already reached the limits of those programs' effectiveness? In other words, what if it knows it can't save any more people through those programs, and that is the reason it diverts funds to other areas? In that case, adding more funds to the antismoking programs wouldn't save more lives, while diverting funds away from highway safety programs might cause more lives to be lost.
Similarly, even if we knew for sure that the government could save additional lives by investing more in antismoking programs, there would be the question of varying rates of return: if one million dollars saved five lives from smoking, but twenty lives from highway accidents, the conclusion of the stimulus might still not be true. But, again, we don't even know whether it's possible to save any lives by investing more in the anti-smoking programs, let alone what the "rates of return" are on investing in those programs versus highway safety programs.
Thus, the flawed pattern of reasoning we're looking for probably runs something like this: an answer choice compares resources invested by something or someone in two areas, then points out that one area has higher "impact" by some metric. The answer choice then concludes that an improved overall effect will result from shifting resources from one area to the other, when we don't know the relative rates of "return" (resource versus impact) between the areas.
22.
The flawed reasoning in which ███ ██ ███ █████████ █████████ ████ ███████ █████████ ███ ██████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████████
a
The government enforces ███ █████ █████ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ███████ ████ ██ █████████ ███ ████ ████ ██████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████ █████████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ██ ████ █████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████ ████ █████ ██ ████████ █████ ████ ███████████ ██ █████ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████████ ██ █████ ██████ ██ █████████
Incorrect. This is a bizarre argument: this suggests that since the government enforces freeway speed limits more closely than tollways and yet more people die on freeways, freeway enforcement is inherently less effective, and the government will somehow save lives by diverting funds from freeway enforcement to tollway enforcement. This is clearly flawed, but it suggests shifting funds away from the "higher-impact" area to the lower-impact area, which is the reverse of what the stimulus does.
b
A certain professional ████████ ██████ ███████ █████ ██ ████ █████ ██████████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████████ ██████████ ███ ███ ██ █████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ████ █████████ ████ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████████ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ██████████ ██████ ███ ████ ████ ██████████ ██████████
Correct. Let's trace the pattern: someone invests a lot more of a certain resource (time) into area A (guitar) than area B (saxophone). But area B is currently the source of some greater impact (playing engagements) than area A. Therefore, diverting resources from A to B will lead to a net increase in that impact.
Like the stimulus, this assumes that it's actually possible to change the impact of A by diverting resources to it. But for the stimulus, we pointed out that the government might have already reached the limit of its impact on smoking deaths. In this case, perhaps the musician is already a master saxophonist and is therefore "maxed out" on playing engagements for saxophone. In this case, giving more time to the saxophone won't increase the number of playing engagements, though maybe getting better at the guitar will. This parallels the flawed structure of the stimulus.
c
Automobiles burn more ███ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ ██ ███████████ ████████ ███ ████ ███ █████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████████ ████████ ██████████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ███████████ ███████ ███ ████ ██ █████████
Incorrect. This answer choice compares the net effect of different rates we are told about (gas per minute versus miles per gallon). That's not what the stimulus does. Remember that the basic problem with the stimulus is that it assumes there will be a rate (lives saved from smoking-related diseases per dollar) when we aren't told what the rates are: it's possible investing more money in antismoking programs will have no effect at all, or a very small effect compared to investing in highway safety programs.
d
The local swim ████ ██████ ████ ████ █████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ███ █████████████ ███ ███ ██████ ███ █████ ███ ███ ████████████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ███ █████ ███ ███ ███████████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ███ ████ ████ █████ ██ ██ █████ ████ ████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ████ ████ ██████████ ███ █████████████
Incorrect. To see why, let's first map the structure onto the stimulus. In the stimulus, the two areas of concern are deaths from highway accidents and deaths from smoking — both bad things we want to bring down. Deaths from smoking are higher, but the government currently invests more resources in the lower area (highway safety). So the conclusion is to shift resources to the higher area to bring it down.
Here, the two areas of concern are backstroke lap times and breaststroke lap times — again, both things you want to bring down (lower times are better). The key is that "much better" breaststroke times means much lower breaststroke times. So backstroke times are the higher problem, and the team is already spending more resources (practice hours) on backstroke — the higher area.
But the conclusion says to shift resources away from backstroke and toward breaststroke — that is, toward the lower area, to try and bring it down even further. This is the reverse of the stimulus, which concludes that resources should be shifted toward the higher area (smoking). So, like (A), this answer choice flips the direction of the argument, and therefore does not parallel the stimulus. (Notice that we also don't know whether improving lap times in one event, whether breaststroke or backstroke, will necessarily mean winning more swim meets.)
e
Banks have a ██████ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ████ █ ████ ████████ ████ ████ ██ █████ ████ ████ █ ███ ████████ █████ ███ █████████ ███ ███████ ██ ██████ ██████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ██████████ █████ █████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██ ████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ███ █████ ███ █████ █████ ██ ████ ██████
Incorrect. Similar to (C), this answer choice compares the effects of different rates that we are given. The problem in the stimulus was not that it gave us rates and compared them incorrectly, but that it assumed certain rates of change: e.g., that it is possible to save more lives from smoking just by adding more money to antismoking programs, and that those "returns" will outweigh potential lives lost from diverting money away from highway safety programs. So this isn't what we're looking for.