The manager of a nuclear power plant defended the claim that the plant was safe by revealing its rate of injury for current workers: only 3.2 injuries per 200,000 hours of work, a rate less than half the national average for all industrial plants. The manager claimed that, therefore, by the standard of how many injuries occur, the plant was safer than most other plants where the employees could work.

Summarize Argument
The manager concludes that the nuclear plant is safer than most other plants where the plant’s employees could work. As evidence, he cites the fact that the nuclear plant’s rate of injuries is less than half the national average for industrial plants.

Notable Assumptions
The manager assumes that a claim about safety can be derived solely from a statistic about injury rate. This means that he doesn’t believe the magnitude of each individual injury should be factored into any discussion of safety. The manager also assumes that injuries on the job are identified immediately, rather than later in life once employment has finished. It could be that the type of work required at nuclear plants exposes workers to harmful chemicals with latent effects, or that the work is physically demanding.

A
Workers at nuclear power plants are required to receive extra training in safety precautions on their own time and at their own expense.
Whether or not we know if other industrial plants have similar protocols in place, it’s hard to see how this could weaken the manager’s argument. If anything, it makes it possible nuclear power plants really are less dangerous than other plants.
B
Workers at nuclear power plants are required to report to the manager any cases of accidental exposure to radiation.
Like (A), we don’t know if this is true of other industrial plants, too. And like (A), this gives another reason why the manager may well be right about nuclear power plant safety.
C
The exposure of the workers to radiation at nuclear power plants was within levels the government considers safe.
This suggests that nuclear power plant workers aren’t experiencing an additional health risk that other industrial plant workers wouldn’t be exposed to. If anything, this helps the manager’s position.
D
Workers at nuclear power plants have filed only a few lawsuits against the management concerning unsafe working conditions.
It seems nuclear power plant workers don’t find working conditions particularly unsafe. This seems to support the manager’s claim that nuclear plants are relatively safe.
E
Medical problems arising from work at a nuclear power plant are unusual in that they are not likely to appear until after an employee has left employment at the plant.
While nuclear power plants have fewer injuries to report each year, the workers suffer nuclear-plant-unique medical problems once they leave their job at the plant. These problems may outweigh the statistic the manager cites.

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Critic: Most chorale preludes were written for the organ, and most great chorale preludes written for the organ were written by J. S. Bach. One of Bach’s chorale preludes dramatizes one hymn’s perspective on the year’s end. This prelude is agonizing and fixed on the passing of the old year, with its dashed hopes and lost opportunities. It does not necessarily reveal Bach’s own attitude toward the change of the year, but does reflect the tone of the hymn’s text. People often think that artists create in order to express their own feelings. Some artists do. Master artists never do, and Bach was a master artist.

Summary

Bach was a master artist. Master artists never create music to express their feelings, but other artists (i.e., some non-master artists) do. This can be diagrammed as follows:

Notable Valid Inferences

Bach never created music to express his feelings. This means the chorale prelude discussed in the stimulus was not made to reveal Bach’s attitudes toward the change of the year.

A
Bach believed that the close of the year was not a time for optimism and joyous celebration.

This could be true. The stimulus doesn’t offer information on how Bach felt about the year ending. While his prelude on this topic wasn’t celebratory, we know that Bach’s music wasn’t designed to express his feelings.

B
In composing music about a particular subject, Bach did not write the music in order to express his own attitude toward the subject.

This must be true. Bach was a master artist, which implies that he never created music to express his feelings.

C
In compositions other than chorale preludes, Bach wrote music in order to express his feelings toward various subjects.

This must be false. Master artists such as Bach never create music to express their feelings. If someone does create music to express their feelings, they must not be a master artist, and therefore must not be Bach, as shown in the diagram below.

D
Most of Bach’s chorale preludes were written for instruments other than the organ.

This could be true. While we know that most great chorale preludes written for the organ were composed by Bach, we don't have information about his preludes for other instruments. Bach's organ preludes may have been fewer in number compared to his preludes for other instruments.

E
Most of the great chorale preludes were written for instruments other than the organ.

This could be true. We know there are some great chorale preludes written specifically for the organ—we don’t know how these compare in number to the great chorale preludes for other instruments.


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