PT2.S2.Q17 - The advanced technology of ski boots

camillawolff

After multiple reviews, I understand why B conflicts with information in the passage. I do not understand why answer choice D does not. I see it as, if reporting became more accurate, then there is an alternate reason for why the incidence of injuries changed between 1950-1980. Please help and let me know where the flaw in my logic is. Thanks!

Kangtime

Let me try to help, hope I can make some sense! I'm guessing you meant to say answer choice C, instead of D.

I think what you have tried to do by picking C was to weaken the argument. You want to say that there is a possibility that there were actually more than 9 injuries per 1,000 skiers in 1950, let's say 20, but only 9 were reported. But this is a problematic approach to this question for a few reasons.

1. This is not a weakening question. In a question like this, we take the information given in the stimulus as a given. There was no reason to suspect that the data given by the stimulus was wrong.

2. The accuracy of the report may give an alternate reason for why the incidence of injuries changed between 1950 - 1980. But we're not looking for an alternate reason for a phenomenon given in the stimulus, only whether it must be impossible.
   Also in this case, the direction of the change in the number is in the wrong direction. If reporting became more accurate, when the actual number of incidences did not change, then we would expect the number of incidences to increase. I am making an assumption here, that when accident reports are more accurate, it means that accidents that have been ignored in the past are being recognized, hence increasing the numbers (instead of decrease in the number of false accidents, where reports of accidents in the past when there actually hasn't been an accident are now being discovered to be false, does seem much less realistic than the other way around). So the incidence number going from 9 to 3 per 1,000 skiers does not seem to be due to more accurate reports of incidences. Perhaps with less accurate reports, it could be possible (even then this wouldn't be the right answer because we are not trying to weaken the argument)

Ultimately, the reports could have gotten more accurate over time, or less accurate over time. Either way, they both are not contradictory with the information given in the stimulus. So C is incorrect!

Hope this helps.