PT3.S4.Q23 - Evaluate the Argument

ironofff

Can someone explain why answer is A and not E? ####HELPPPP Thank you.

Admin note: edited title; please use the format of "PT#.S#.Q# - [brief description]"

tahurrrrr

What PT/section/ question?

ironofff

PT 3, Section 4, Question 23. Thank you!

cicero711

"Evaluate the argument" question types essentially mean, "What else would be good to know if we were to take this argument at face value? Are there perhaps other factors affecting the scenario that could potentially weaken the argument?"

The conclusion is found in the question stim: the program is the cause of reduced automobile theft for those cars with the decals. AC A asks, "Are these particular car owners doing anything else that's helping to prevent their cars from being stolen in addition to getting the decals?" That would be great to know, because if they were, then that would totally weaken the argument.

AC E asks about cross sections of the neighborhood being representational of all cars owned in the area. This isn't relevant to the argument, because the argument isn't even making any sort of claim about the area at large—it's simply saying that the decals are the cause of reduced theft. That's it. It's not even saying that decals work in general, just that they worked in this instance. Remember to not bring in outside knowledge or assumptions and ONLY go with what's written in the stimulus.

mesposito886

Often in evaluate questions, the right answer is one that you can test: answering yes or no to it will either strengthen or weaken the argument. Using answer choice A as an example:

If we said yes, these car owners with decals are also taking other special measures to prevent car theft (parking in well-lit areas, installing trackers, etc.) this would weaken the argument by adding several alternative explanations as to why the theft rate for cars with decals is lower.

On the other hand, if we said no, we would be eliminating the possibility of alternative explanations, which would strengthen the argument.

Answer choice E is asking about whether the types of cars in the neighborhoods running these programs is representative of the types of cars in neighborhoods in general. You may want to assume that if the neighborhoods with these programs only have clunkers lying around, they're not getting stolen too often and aren't representative of neighborhoods with nicer cars. But the stimulus says that the rate of theft for cars with decals is lower than usual for cars in those neighborhoods. This means that for the neighborhood the program is running in, the car theft rate was around 30%. But for the cars with decals in that neighborhood, the theft rate is 2%. We're still working inside the same neighborhood, it's just that the theft rate for decal cars is lower than the general theft rate for cars in that area.