Q21 - Engineer: Air bags in automobiles occasionally cause

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: The new systems will probably only make the air bag inflation problems worse.

Evidence: The new system will be more complex, and the more complex a system is, the more ways it can fail.

Answer Anticipation:
How would we argue that "even though there will be more ways in which this new system can fail, it WON'T worsen problems with accidental air bag inflation."

Well, does [more ways to fail] = [more likely to fail] ?
No, one high-probability way of failing could still be more likely to misfire than many low-probability ways of failing. So the flaw is something like "takes for granted that more ways to fail means more likely to fail".

Correct Answer:
A

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Yeah, this'll work. It gets right at the argument core: whether there is a higher number of ways the system can fail vs. whether the likelihood of the system failing is higher.

(B) Too strong. The author doesn't have to assume that "EVERY SINGLE failure will cause inflation"

(C) This can't weaken. Who cares about other things that trigger accidental inflations. We're only judging whether the new system will trigger more accidental inflations than the old system did.

(D) HA. "Even if my client is guity, he's still a good person!" The first half of this answer awards the author her conclusion, so, no, this can't weaken. If the conclusion were something broad about the new system, like "We shouldn't install the new system", then this becomes relevant. But the conclusion is only about whether the new system will trigger more / not more inflations.

(E) Again, similar to (D), this would only work as a defense if someone had said, "Thus, we should get rid of airbags".

Takeaway/Pattern: The correct answer simply says, "the author overlooks that his premise doesn't necessarily imply his conclusion". One wrong answer was a classic "takes for granted + STRONG LANGUAGE" trap. The other three were potential objections, but they were all irrelevant to judging whether the new system will / won't lead to more accidental inflations.

#officialexplanation

[BarryM800]

The conclusion in the stimulus is the new computer control system will make the problems with accidental air bag inflation even worse, not the likelihood of the system failing gets higher. I'm struggling to equate them. Couldn't "make the problem even worse" mean "make it more complicated." For example, due to the upgraded computer control system, when the accidental inflation occurs, now it's far more difficult to diagnose the issue and to fix it, simply because we're now dealing with a much more complex system and we have to consider far more issues. That's my thinking process of eliminating (A) - a detail creep. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[Laura Damone]

Hello!

I'm curious if you prephrased this one. If you did, hopefully the gap in reasoning between "more ways there are in which it can fail" and "make the problems...even worse" stood out. If so, that helps A stand out as a good contender.

Regarding the detail creep, I think digging into the referent language is helpful. A referent is a word or phrase that refers to a concept mentioned earlier. The first sentence puts forth a particular problem: injury caused by accidental inflation. The second sentence says manufacturers are attempting to fix "the problem." That's a referent, and it refers back to the specific problem of injuries resulting from accidental inflation. The conclusion also contains a referent—"the problems." That's a little tricky because it's plural, but I still think it's referring back to the injuries resulting from accidental inflation.

If the premise—more ways the system can fail—is going to support this conclusion, we need to assume that the more ways the system can fail, the more frequently the airbags will accidentally inflate and injure people. Thus, we fail to adequately address the possibility that this is not the case, which is exactly what A says.

Hope this helps!