PTA.S1.Q4

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 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8

PASSAGE 2

Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13

PASSAGE 3

Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20

PASSAGE 4

Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

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 Question 25

SECTION 4 · 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

The safety inspector argues that because the number of laboratory samples of rabies sent through the university delivery service has grown "dangerously high", this use of the service should be limited. The biologist responds that because the university delivery service has never had any accidents in the last 20 years of handling rabies virus samples, there is no need for a limit.

The biologist's counter-argument doesn't take into account the safety inspector's premise that the number of rabies samples sent through the university service has recently grown dangerously high. If the number of samples was pretty much the same as it had been over the last 20 years, then it might be relevant that there have been no accidents in those 20 years. But the biologist's response misses the point that, if there has been a change — a more recent increase to a "dangerous" level — then the university's past track record might not be relevant. The new number of rabies samples might be well beyond the university's capacity to handle without accidents.

Another way to think about this is that the biologist is assuming a past situation (no accidents over the last 20 years) is analogous to the present situation, when there has in fact been a change that makes the situations disanalogous. (For more on this, review the "Analogy" and "Time" tags on the LR Stimulus Logic Cheat Sheet).