PT23.S3.Q9

SECTION 1 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25

SECTION 2 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

SECTION 3 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24

SECTION 4 · rc

PASSAGE 1
Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5

PASSAGE 2
Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13

PASSAGE 3
Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18

PASSAGE 4
Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

PrepTest 23 - Section 3 - Question 9

Question

Explanation

Analytics

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Support If a person chooses to walk rather than drive, there is one less vehicle emitting pollution into the air than there would be otherwise. █████████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ████████ ██ ██ ████████ ███ ████ ██ ██ ███ ████ █████████ ████ ██ ███████ ████████

Argument Breakdown

The author concludes that if people would walk whenever feasible, then that would greatly reduce pollution. Why? Because if someone walks instead of driving, then that avoids one car's worth of emissions. In other words, because walking rather than driving reduces pollution, walking whenever feasible would reduce pollution.

Objective: Strengthen

Because we've already seen a Necessary Assumption question using this same stimulus, we might have some idea of the direction we can take to strengthen this argument. We can provide additional support by asserting that enough people currently drive when it is feasible to walk to significantly reduce pollution.

However, that's not the only direction we can take to add support. The argument depends on the causal relationship between walking whenever feasible and reducing pollution, which we can strengthen in other ways. For example, we could identify an additional benefit to walking that would further reduce pollution, or we could eliminate a possible disadvantage of walking. Because we're not certain what the correct answer will look like, we should read carefully and rely on elimination if necessary.

Analysis by AlexandraNash

Show answer

Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ █████████

If automobile passengers ███ █████ █████ ████ ███████ ██ █████ █████ ████ ███ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ █ ███████

The argument is only concerned with the choices of people who drive, so the choices of passengers who never drive aren't relevant.

Nonmoving running vehicles, ██ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ████ █████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ █████████ ███ ███ ███████ ██████████ ███ ███ ████ █████████ ███████ ████████ █████ ████

In other words, idling cars pollute less than moving cars, but more congestion (i.e. more cars on the road) means more idling cars. (B) gives us an additional benefit to walking: not only directly reducing the number of cars, but also reducing congestion so that other cars spend less time idling and emitting pollution.

Since different vehicles ███ ███████ ██ █████████ ██████ ██ ██ ████████ ███ ███ ██████ ███ █████ ██ ████ █ ███████ ████████████ ██ █████████ ██████████ ████ ███████ ██████ ███ ██████

(C) is an extremely reasonable claim, but because we don't know what types of cars are driven by people who could feasibly walk, it doesn't actually make any difference to the argument. We can't assume that more-polluting cars are distributed in any particular way.

If drivers who could feasibly walk were also likely to drive more-polluting cars, then (C) would be a great answer. But without that information, (C) ends up being a trap.

On average, buses ███████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ███ █████ ███████ █████ ████ ██████████ ████ ████ ███

The author is only concerned with people who drive but could choose to walk. Like the car passengers mentioned in (A), bus passengers aren't relevant to the argument.

Those who previously ████ ██ ██████████ ██ █ ███████ █████ ██████ ███████ ██ ████ ███████ ██ █████ █████ ██████████ ██████ ██ ██████

(E) is a slightly weakening answer, because it identifies a potential disadvantage of people choosing to walk. Passengers who take up driving themselves would offset the reduction of pollution.

Difficulty

Question

55% of people who answer get this correct

This is a very difficult question.

CURVE

Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right

25% 153

166

75% 179

Analysis

Question Stem Tags

Strengthen

Stimulus Tags

Causal reasoning

Net effect

Answer Popularity

Popularity Avg. score

165

55%

171

32%

165

Question history

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