Q12 - The government has recently adopted

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Disclosing airline safety stats undermines the effort to make the public more informed about airline safety.
Evidence: If airline safety stats are disclosed, airlines will be less likely to give complete reports.

Answer Anticipation:
We can assign ourselves the opposing counsel position of "disclosing safety stats does NOT undermine the goal of making the public more informed (i.e. it HELPS make the public more informed)". One objection could simply be that the government may have some means of forcing airlines to provide complete reports (or some means of otherwise obtaining complete data, even if the airlines won't fork it over). But we could also just object that "Some transparency is better than none".

Correct Answer:
A

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Would this weaken? Yes! It helps us argue that "disclosure DOES make the public more informed".

(B) Does she have to assume this? No. Too extreme. The public has a right to ALL info?

(C) Does she have to assume this? No, too extreme. Safety info is IMPOSSIBLE to find?

(D) Does she have to assume this? No, nothing in the argument is about "who SHOULD be RESPONSIBLE". The argument is simply about whether taking a certain action would result in more/less achievement of a certain goal.

(E) Would this weaken? No, because the conclusion isn't measured in terms of how it fiscally affects airlines. It's measured in terms of how it affects the public being more/less informed.

Takeaway/Pattern: The easiest way to get this one right is to prephrase the Anti-Conclusion, "how can I accept that airlines wouldn't publish complete reports, but still argue that disclosure WOULD make the public more informed about airline safety?"

#officialexplanation

[k.s]

Hi, I don't understand why is D wrong. Isn't it true that the passage assumes that the airlines are free to not report the complete and accurate statistics? I understand that A is a good answer choice, I just don't understand why D is not. Can someone please explain this to me? Thank you very much

[bbirdwell]

(D) is wrong because the argument makes no mention of "who should be responsible." In terms of the argument, it makes no difference who "should" be "responsible" for the accurate reporting.

[zainrizvi]

Just wanting to better my understanding:


(E) Out of scope. Revenue? What?
(D) Should be held responsible? Stimulus never mentions anything related to responsibility
(C) Absence of government disclosures? The stimulus doesn't mention this scenario either.
(B) It's not assuming that public has RIGHT to ALL information about public safety. Just saying government's goal is making public more informed about AIRLINE safety
(A) Conclusion is such disclosure UNDERMINES goal of making public more informed about society. Why? Because airlines will be less likely to give complete reports. But who is to say that incomplete reports do not contain valuable information for the public? Incomplete doesn't necessarily mean inadequate, or incorrect. Incomplete just means incomplete.


I saw a bigger flaw here that I wanted to confirm: doesn't the stimulus overlook the possibility that the information the government releases, along with the "incomplete reports", provide sufficient/more information than given in the original complete reports exclusively? That's what my initial inclination was so I struggled a bit with the choices. Is my thinking valid?

[bbirdwell]

doesn't the stimulus overlook the possibility that the information the government releases, along with the "incomplete reports", provide sufficient/more information than given in the original complete reports exclusively?

I think this is exactly what (A) says! "Perhaps the "incomplete" report is valuable!"