PT101.S2.Q19

PrepTest 101 - Section 2 - Question 19

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Support In Australia the population that is of driving age has grown larger over the last five years, but the annual number of traffic fatalities has declined. ████ █████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████ ████████ ███ ███████████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ████████ ██ ████ ████████ ███████ ███ ████ ████ █████ ████

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis

The author hypothesizes that the overall driving-age population of Australia must have more skillful drivers now compared to five years ago. This is based on the fact that, even though the driving age population has grown over the last five years, the annual number of traffic deaths has gone down over that time.

Notable Assumptions

The author assumes that there’s no other causal explanation for the decrease in annual traffic deaths other than an increase in the skill of drivers.

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19.

Each of the statements below, ██ █████ ███████ ███ ████████ ███████

a

Three years ago, █ █████████ █████████ ███ ████ ████ ██████ ██████████ ██████████

This is a potential alternate explanation for the decrease in traffic deaths. Maybe the law caused more people to wear seat belts, which saved more lives.

Alternate explanation
b

Five years ago, █████████ █████ █ █████ ████ ██████ ████████

This is a potential alternate explanation for the decrease in traffic deaths. Maybe repairs improved road quality, which allowed for safer driving.

Alternate explanation
c

Because of increases ██ ███ █████ ██ █████ ███████████ ██ ███████ █████ ████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███ █████████ █████

This is a potential alternate explanation for the decrease in traffic deaths. Maybe average time spent driving went down, which we’d expect to result in fewer deaths from driving.

Alternate explanation
d

The number of ████████ █████████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ██████

This is a potential alternate explanation for the decrease in traffic deaths. Maybe the increase in emergency facilities made it easier to get to the hospital after an accident, which we’d expect to reduce the number of deaths from those accidents.

Alternate explanation
e

In response to ██ ████████ ██ ███████ ███████████ █████████ ██████████ █ ███████ ██ █████████ ██████ █████████ ████ █████ ████

We can interpret this as supporting the author’s hypothesis. The driver education program could have contributed to more skillful drivers in the population. Since we can read this as supporting the author’s hypothesis, it’s the correct answer to this Weaken-EXCEPT question.

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