Q21 - Safety consultant: Judged by the

[chlqusghtk]

Can you please explain why B is wrong?

Thank you.

[pinkdatura]

co-ask
my thought is in stimulus, the conclusion is the reason of safe record, so it is not the inherent safer but drivers contribute most to the safe record.
premise is crash test, comparison between similar size vehicle
injury per vehicle demonstrates its safe record

B only attack sentence 1 in the stimulus by posting different standard accident per vehicle rather than injury per vehicle, then we can only deduct the fact minivan doesn't have safe record, rather than why/how it establish its safe record.

Waiting for more explanation...

[cyruswhittaker]

It seems like choice (E) strengthens the argument by helping to add extra strength to the premises by showing that minivans aren't inherently safer, thus also helping to strengthen the conclusion that the reason for the good safety reason is "probably not that they are inherently safer..."

[da.chou]

Answer choice B actually weakens it, I think. If according to the numbers of accidents, minivans are no safer...and at the same time according to the number of injuries, they are the safest, then that means equal or more accidents while less injuries. I'm not sure you can make an air tight inference but I think it shows that minivans are by design safer.

This weakens the conclusion that minivans are safer because it is the low-risk drivers.

Answer choice E is right because this says minivans by design are less safe. It strengthens the conclusion that it is the low-risk drivers that make minivans safe by removing an alternative cause (safer design) to the effect (safest vehicle on the road).

I almost picked A for some reason, I have no idea why.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Let's look at the argument core.

There is an observed phenomenon:

Judged by the number of injuries per registered vehicle, minivans are the safest vehicles on the road.

The conclusion is that one explanation is correct and that another is not.

The correct explanation: Minivans are driven primarily by low-risk drivers.

The incorrect explanation: Minivans are inherently safer.

To strengthen this argument we can do one of three things:

1. eliminate an alternative explanation (thereby making theirs more likely to be true)
2. find evidence to support that the posited explanation is correct 3. find evidence to support that the refuted explanation is not correct.

(A) is irrelevant because minivans do not perform particularly well in crash test.
For answer choices (B) and (C) this is pure speculation...
(B) makes it sound like the issue is really the number of passengers per vehicle, since a difference between "injuries per vehicle" and "accidents per vehicle" could only be explained by the number of passengers in a minivan. But this explanation would undermine the conclusion that minivans are driven primarily by low-risk drivers.
(C) is not meant to be tempting, but to reinforce in your head the idea that maybe the number of passengers per vehicle is important and thus tempt you back to answer choice (B).
(D) undermines the conclusion that it's the low-risk drivers who should deserve the credit.
(E) correct: doesn't support the explanation that minivans are driven by low-risk drivers, but it does help refute the explanation that minivans are inherently safer.

I know that's a lot to sift through. Sorry for the lengthy explanation, but this one is tough! Does that help clear this up?

[interestedintacos]

All of these posts apparently miss the key issue in the argument (which choice E is designed to attack).

We learn that minivans aren't better at protecting their occupants than other vehicles OF THE SAME SIZE! We didn't learn that minivans aren't better at protecting their occupants than other vehicles period. If, as the content would certainly suggest, big cars are in general better at protecting their occupants and minivans are in fact equally safe or almost as safe (as the text allows) then this evidence doesn't support the conclusion (that minivans aren't inherently safer than the general set of cars) at all!

We need to see that minivans are not more safe than the general set of cars, not that they are no safer than a set that is already potentially much more safe than the general set.

E does it for is. E weakens the chance that the minivans are in fact equal with other big cars, which was left open by the evidence. So the weakness remains but E definitely helps attack it--we have added evidence that eliminates a possibility that the original evidence allowed for, a possibility that would destroy the argument.

[bdk980]

I have to agree with the post above, but I think it can be explained simpler...

Think about (e) and what it is really saying/implying, if mini-vans are actually more dangerous than any other vehicle of similar size yet make up the least amount of "injuries per licensed vehicle," what variable could cause them (minivans) to be so safe. Exactly what the consultant is claiming...they are driven by low-risk, defensive drivers who don't get into accidents often, causing accident statistics that aren't truly representative of their "safeness."

Answer choice (e) is confusing/tricky because your immediate inclination is to think, worse braking systems (that's has to be a weaken-er) and due to the arrangement of the argument, but it really does a nice job of tying it all these pieces together... adding credence to the consultants claim about low-risk/accident-averse drivers.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Great discussion!

Answer choice (e) is confusing/tricky because your immediate inclination is to think, worse braking systems (that's has to be a weaken-er) and due to the arrangement of the argument, but it really does a nice job of tying it all these pieces together...

Nice point. It's the refutation of one explanation and the offering of another that allows us to either strengthen the offered explanation or weaken the refuted explanation.

Most importantly here is to think about alternative explanations to the one offered (safe-drivers) for the low number of injuries per licensed vehicle. Good safety equipment (brakes, etc...) would undermine the conclusion by providing an alternative explanation. Answer choice (E) weakens the refuted explanation.

Btw, this conceptual framework (observed phenomenon: explanation) is coming up more frequently than it used to and is very common on Strengthen/Weaken questions toward the latter part of the LR section.

[apfmek]

I can see how (E) strenghtens the argument. However, i'm having a hard time understanding why (d) doesn't strengthen the argument.
If, as (D) says, the larger vehicle's ability to protect its passengers is greater, then doesn't this reaffirm that minivans are not inherently safer?

[vcoats2]

Hmm... I originally picked B, originally being between B and E, and while I now believe that B is wrong, I don't necessarily follow the reasoning here.

Answer choice B says "the number of accidents per licensed vehicle", meaning a single car that has been in, possibly, multiple accidents. I don't think that this has any implications about the number of injuries per vehicle. The reason why I would now argue that answer choice B should be eliminated is that it weakens the conclusion that minivan drivers are generally safer drivers. The answer choice reads "Judged by the number of accidents per licensed vehicle, mini vans are no safer...", meaning that mini van drivers get into the same amount of accidents as drivers of other vehicles. Wouldn't that suggest that mini van drivers really aren't safer drivers?

Thoughts?

[grantspam2]

I've analyzed this passage for too long, and still cannot find a reason why (C) is wrong. When I answered this question, I was torn between C and E, and chose C. Here's my reasoning.

First sentence, premise: "judged by the number of injuries per licensed vehicle, minivans are the safest vehicles on the road."

We need to strengthen the conclusion that minivans have a good safety record not because they are inherently safer, but because they are driven by good drivers.

(C). If the number of passengers are higher, then according to the first premise, minivans should NOT be the safest vehicle on the road. A car with 5 passengers vs. a car with 1 passenger, the car with 5 passengers should have more injuries per vehicle if the accident rates are equal. Combined with the fact that minivans are not safer, in order to equalize the first premise, minivans MUST get in fewer accidents than other types of cars, and hence, the drivers are safer.

I was pretty confident when I selected C here... Any help on where my logic fails would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Hmm... I originally picked B, originally being between B and E, and while I now believe that B is wrong, I don't necessarily follow the reasoning here.

Answer choice B says "the number of accidents per licensed vehicle", meaning a single car that has been in, possibly, multiple accidents. I don't think that this has any implications about the number of injuries per vehicle. The reason why I would now argue that answer choice B should be eliminated is that it weakens the conclusion that minivan drivers are generally safer drivers. The answer choice reads "Judged by the number of accidents per licensed vehicle, mini vans are no safer...", meaning that mini van drivers get into the same amount of accidents as drivers of other vehicles. Wouldn't that suggest that mini van drivers really aren't safer drivers?

Thoughts?

I agree, which is what I tried to point out above, nice work!

I've analyzed this passage for too long, and still cannot find a reason why (C) is wrong. When I answered this question, I was torn between C and E, and chose C. Here's my reasoning.

First sentence, premise: "judged by the number of injuries per licensed vehicle, minivans are the safest vehicles on the road."

We need to strengthen the conclusion that minivans have a good safety record not because they are inherently safer, but because they are driven by good drivers.

(C). If the number of passengers are higher, then according to the first premise, minivans should NOT be the safest vehicle on the road. A car with 5 passengers vs. a car with 1 passenger, the car with 5 passengers should have more injuries per vehicle if the accident rates are equal. Combined with the fact that minivans are not safer, in order to equalize the first premise, minivans MUST get in fewer accidents than other types of cars, and hence, the drivers are safer.

I was pretty confident when I selected C here... Any help on where my logic fails would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

The issue with answer choice (C) is that it doesn't address the choice that's set up within the argument--is it that minivans are inherently safe, or are they driven by safer drivers? Answer choice (E) discusses the safety of the vehicle and helps to rule out the alternative proposition offered in the argument. Answer choice (C) however, addresses an alternative explanation--the number of passengers. This might rule out a third explanation for why the number of injuries per licensed vehicle is so low for minivans, but it doesn't help to rule out the possibility that minivans are inherently safer.

Hope that helps!

[gplaya123]

I am still confused...

Please help!!

According to above posts, it seems that B and C are wrong due to same substantive reason.

Here is my reasoning why B and C might be right.

Here are facts:
1) Minivans are the safest based on "number of injury" test
2) However, it's not inherently safer than other cars due to this crash test

B: B is suggesting that there is another test that shows that minivans are not safer; in other words, minivans get into accidents as much as a sport car YET it results in less injuries AND is as safe as a sport car... Doesn't this make an alternative cause (low-risk drivers) look attractive?

C: C is saying that there are more people in the minivan all the time YET it results in less injury compared to others and are no safer than others... Doesn't this make an alternative cause (low-risk drivers) look attractive?

I guess if I find a reason why B might not be correct... perhaps I learn that C is not correct either.

Also I have a question...

I thought E was a premise booster of the statement "the reason... is probably not they are inherently safer."

What am I thinking wrong...

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I thought E was a premise booster of the statement "the reason... is probably not they are inherently safer."

Actually, that is not a premise of the argument, but part of the conclusion. And since (E) supports that claim, it does strengthen the argument.

With regard to answer choice (B), doesn't this suggest that minivans are not driven by safe drivers? Wouldn't this undermine the conclusion? This seems to suggest that it is the vehicle safety that explains why the injury rate is low for minivans.

With regard to answer choice (C), doesn't this leave open the question about what is providing the safety? Sure we would expect to see more injuries than we actually do, since minivans have more passengers. So where does this safety come from? Is it the safety provided by the vehicle itself, or is it coming from safer drivers? This doesn't help us determine the reason for the lower risk of injury.

Hope that helps!

[einuoa]

I am still confused...

Please help!!

According to above posts, it seems that B and C are wrong due to same substantive reason.

Here is my reasoning why B and C might be right.

Here are facts:
1) Minivans are the safest based on "number of injury" test
2) However, it's not inherently safer than other cars due to this crash test

B: B is suggesting that there is another test that shows that minivans are not safer; in other words, minivans get into accidents as much as a sport car YET it results in less injuries AND is as safe as a sport car... Doesn't this make an alternative cause (low-risk drivers) look attractive?

C: C is saying that there are more people in the minivan all the time YET it results in less injury compared to others and are no safer than others... Doesn't this make an alternative cause (low-risk drivers) look attractive?

I guess if I find a reason why B might not be correct... perhaps I learn that C is not correct either.

Also I have a question...

I thought E was a premise booster of the statement "the reason... is probably not they are inherently safer."

What am I thinking wrong...

I'll take a whack at this question as well, I originally chose B and was deciding between B & E.

My original thoughts to B was that, well the judged by the number of accidents/vehicle gives us another criteria to the safety of minivans, and so this gives another reason that they aren't inherently safer. The problem instead states that minivans are no better in crash tests than other vehicles of similar size, so they all have similar results. Based on the crash test report, the conclusion is that minivans aren't inherently safer, they just have better drivers.

Choice B is now saying that minivans are no safer than MOST other kinds of vehicles, but it still leaves open the interpretation that maybe they are still safer than other vehicles of the same size (which would be a weakener), or that they are not safer than other vehicles of the same size (which would be a strengthener). In this way, it's kind of ambiguous as to if it can be a weakener or strengthener.

Choice C, I read and thought, so what? I think this answer choice is also up for interpretation. The premise says that from injuries/vehicle, minivans are the safest vehicles on the road. C says that minivans carry more passengers at a given time than most other vehicles, but this isn't implying that the vehicle itself is safer. It's instead saying that minivans have more passengers; they're the safest vehicles on the road. This doesn't connect together, so we'd have to fill in the gap which could be from inherently safer, or safer drivers, or even less unruly passengers, driving on safer roads, and etc.

Choice E shows more holes in the crash test (in a good way), in that not only do minivans have less ability to protect their occupants than other vehicles of similar size, they also have worse braking and emergency handling capabilities. This shows that it's probably unlikely that they are inherently safer...look at all those other problems.

[joecantou]

Didn't think any of the first 5 explanations I read did this question justice, so I thought I'd share my thoughts.


The conclusion claims that the reason why mini-vans are safer than other cars is because they are driven by low-risk drivers, not because the cars themselves are any safer.

The question stem tells us that we need to strengthen the conclusion.

(A) According to this stimulus, the crash tests don't show that minivans perform better in crash tests than other cars, so there are no such tests that drivers can use.
Furthermore, this may also weaken the conclusion by polluting the conclusion. If all the low-risk drivers are buying cars that are safer than other cars, then it might not be the case that the minivans are safer than other cars because of the better drivers, but rather because the cars themselves are safer.

(B) This merely tells us that by some standard (number of accidents per vehicle) mini-vans are no safer than other cars. This might weaken the conclusion because it suggests that minivans aren't safer than other cars, which would weaken the conclusion that they are safer at all for any reason, even the one championed by the conclusion.
Even if you don't buy this logic, realize that this answer choice doesn't tell us anything about WHY mini-vans might be safer than other cars. It might still be the case that in terms of the standard referenced to in this answer choice, the reason why mini-vans are just as safe as other cars is because they have better braking systems or larger tires than other types of cars (two possible alternate causes).

(C) This answer choice strengthens a part of the argument, but not the conclusion. It strengthens the notion that mini-vans are safer than other cars, because even though they have more passengers than other types of cars on average, they are still safer than other types of cars in terms of "the number of injuries per licensed vehicle." However, that doesn't tell us WHY mini-vans are safer than other types of cars. It may still be the case that this correlation is not due to the low-risk drivers, but rather because they just happen to be lucky (random alternate cause) or because they just can't move fast enough to be involved in an accident that can cause serious damage.

(D) This clearly weakens the argument because it suggests that the reason why mini-vans are safer than other cars is because they are larger, which means that the reason that they are safer than other types of cars is because they are inherently safer (size is an inherent feature), which is detrimental to our conclusion that the reason why they are safer than other types of cars is because they have safer drivers.

(E) This strengthens the argument because it weakens two alternative causes. It suggests that they are not inherently safer, since they have bad braking systems (better braking systems is a possible alternate cause) and worse emergency handling capabilities (being better able to swerve your way out of an accident is another alternative cause). By eliminating these alternative causes, this answer choice in turn strengthens the argument's conclusion by suggesting that the reason why minivans are safer than other vehicles is because their drivers are low-risk.
Also realize that this answer choice directly supports a part of the conclusion, namely that mini-vans being inherently safer than other types of cars is not why minivans have a good safety record.


Hope this helped.

[jewels0602]

Just wanted to add my 2 cents to this...

I went back and forth between C and E during practice and review and it was spectularly difficult for me to choose between the two- I inevitable ended up choosing the wrong one both times because of reasons already mentioned (grantspam2).

This thread has been pretty helpful in trying to get logic down, and what I got from this question is that it's important to strengthen the conclusion, which is what AC C doesn't do. (conclusion being minivans aren't inherently safer but low-risk drivers just drive them). THanks to a few posters, I was able to see that more clearly--

As a follow up, could AC C be seen as a premise booster-ish kind of answer? Because it does talk about passenger in car and having more in the mini-van yet still having less injuries per licensed car still leaves open the idea that car is inherently safer-- so because it boosts the premise but doesn't address the conclusion.

[daijob]

I thought E was a premise booster of the statement "the reason... is probably not they are inherently safer."

Actually, that is not a premise of the argument, but part of the conclusion. And since (E) supports that claim, it does strengthen the argument.

With regard to answer choice (B), doesn't this suggest that minivans are not driven by safe drivers? Wouldn't this undermine the conclusion? This seems to suggest that it is the vehicle safety that explains why the injury rate is low for minivans.

With regard to answer choice (C), doesn't this leave open the question about what is providing the safety? Sure we would expect to see more injuries than we actually do, since minivans have more passengers. So where does this safety come from? Is it the safety provided by the vehicle itself, or is it coming from safer drivers? This doesn't help us determine the reason for the lower risk of injury.

Hope that helps!

So the premise is "minivans show no greater ability to protect..." right?
But then I feel that it is saying the same thing as the part of the conclusion "the reason minivans have such a good safety..." and if they are talking about the same thing, and E supports the "the reason minivans have such a good..." part, it eventually support the premise as well, and it turns out it is a premise booster I thought.
Aren't the two parts talking about the same thing? And E is actually kind of premise booster?

Thank you

[maria487]

I knew that the correct answer was (E), but I didn't have a good reason for eliminating (B).

I think it comes down to it being an ambiguous answer choice--it doesn't clearly weaken or strengthen. Depending on how you look at it, it can perform either function. As a strengthener, it casts on the drivers being low-risk--why are there so many accidents, is it because the drivers are bad? As a weakener, it strengthens the idea that the minivans in themselves are not the reason for the good safety record--they are no safer than most other vehicles, so maybe it is the good drivers who make them so safe.

I remember an example of this in the Manhattan LR book; if the answer doesn't clearly perform one function (either strengthen or weaken), it's not your answer.

[LolaC289]

I don't know if this question is supposed to hard, but I've tripped over (C) twice. This time I tried to really looking into it, hope this will do some help!

I found out the attraction of (C) comes from a not clear grasp for the point to strengthen. It's very important to remember what exactly the TASK is, because when we get entangled with certain attractive answer choices, as a by-product, they can "inject" some close, but wrong ideas into our minds and twist our initial understanding. (C) here is a good example of it.

Let me go through the argument briefly:

Con: The reason minivans are safer is because they are driven by low-risk drivers, not because they are inherently safer.
Support 1: Judged by the number of injuries per licensed vehicle, minivans are the safest vehicles on the road. (Per each minivan, death number is the lowest)
Support 2: In carefully designed crash tests, minivans show no greater ability to protect passengers than other similar-size vehicles do.

In my understanding, support 1 is trying to proving "minivans are safer" in the conclusion; support 2 is indicating that minivans are not inherently safer in the conclusion.

What's the gap? Well, immediately I saw two: first, support 2 is only about the vehicles which have similar size to minivans, while the conclusion is broader, about all "other vehicles" ; second, even if support 2 is sufficient to prove that minivans are not inherently safer (which actually is not, I'll address later in this post), how does "low-risk drivers" come into play?

So we anticipate the answers would probably go along these two ways, accordingly, Minivans are not inherently safer than all other vehicles, or They are driven by low-risk drivers.

Sidenote: maybe some of the test takers will try to pressure the point of whether minivans are safer or not, questioning if support 1 is truly sufficient to prove that minivans are safer in the conclusion. While it's true that the crush test is not enough to prove minivans are safer, the fact that the test writers used "carefully designed" to describe it and the fact that the conclusion has already pinned it as an accepted fact are indicating that this is not the point to address, at least for this question.

I get rid of (A) & (B) pretty fast. However, when I come across (C), the long-standing LSAT tradition has begun to mess up with my rememberance of the task in this question which is the reason for minivan's safety, not the safety itself. LSAT loves to set "inherent ability" as strengthen/weaken points, usually used for addressing correlation does not imply causation (like A performs better than B is not because A has x and B does not, but because A is inherently better than B on that task). So I chose it, thinking yeah, if on top of having less death numbers, minivans even carry more passengers than most other vehicles, that would mean......

......that we have further proved minivans are safer than other vehicles! Even with the condition that minivans tend to have more passengers than other cars, they have fewer deaths. It's a great answer for strengthening the minivan's safety, except this is not the point here. Saying minivans are 100 times safer than any other cars has nothing to do with proving either minivans are not inherently safer or anything linked to drivers. In fact, it even seems to weaken a little bit, because this high level of safety seems like to show that the minivans are somehow inherently safer.

(E), however, addressed the first part of the conclusion, that the minivans are not inherently safer. Apparent in itself, it actually addressed a very subtle gap, that is the nature of crash test (in proving actual vehicle safety).

What is a crash test? By its name, it's test letting cars bump against each other to see how will that car become after the crash. The car intended for the test will be driven at a certain speed or stay still so the other car can have a collision with it. Thus the cars in this kind of test will not use brakes or emergency handles or anything that would make it stop because those are the functions designed to prevent collisions. Therefore, in crash test, cars to test are just passive collision-receiving object. But will they become active in actual crashes? If they have great brakes or emergency handles that they can use in actual accidents, even if in crash test, minivans performs no better than other cars, it would still show that they are inherently safer (because they have these great stopping devices)! (E) points this out not by questioning the validity of the test, but actually the relevance of it.

Phew! This is a long post. Since I've already come this far...let's just take a look at all the other wrong choices. REMEMBER: the task here is WHY minivans are safer.

(A) brings into the low-risk driver factor. However, it's a straight contradiction to the premise that minivans does NOT perform better in crash tests. So even if they choose the cars that do better in these tests, it will not be minivans.

(B) tries to attack a premise in the conclusion which is minivans are safer. However, it's not legitimate to do in LSAT since the author has already assumed this as a fact, and try to explore the reasons behind it. Also, we have no idea which is the better indicator for the minivans' safety, death number per car or accident number per car.

(C) is addressed above.

(D) somehow likes (B), attacked the premise.

(E) is addressed above.

However, (E) has not proven the conclusion here. It strengthen the first part of the conclusion ("minivans are not inherently safer"), but has no mention on the driver factor. In addition, it does not address the extension of scope from the premise to conclusion which is the "other similar size vehicles" to the "other vehicles" in the conclusion. However, it at least strengthened the point that minivans are NOT inherently safer than similar size vehicles, which also belongs to broader "other vehicles" in the conclusion. It seems like this scope change is not the point they choose to bring out to discuss in here.

Hope this helps!