Q25 - In a car accident, air

[weiyichen1986]

Dear people ,

can anyone explain why A is not wrong? I thought the core of this argument is about comparing between cars without airbags and cars with airbags...thank you in advance.

[giladedelman]

Hmm... my answer key says the right answer is (D), which would mean (A) is wrong.

We have two bits of evidence: 1) air bags reduce the risk of serious injury, and 2) cars without air bags are less likely to be involved in accidents. From this evidence, the argument concludes that cars with air bags are no safer than cars without.

There are a few gaps here, but probably the biggest one is the idea that rate of accidents is as important a consideration as risk of injury when judging a vehicles' safety. We might just as easily assume the opposite: that safety should be judged by what happens when you get in an accident, not by how likely an accident is to occur (especially because we have no evidence that lack of air bags causes the higher accident rate.)

In short, the argument assumes that we care about accident rate, not just risk of serious injury. That's why (D) is correct.

(A) is incorrect because the argument doesn't assume that any car with air bags will probably get in accidents, just that it's more likely.

(B) is out because this would actually strengthen, rather than weaken, the argument; it would bolster the idea that cars without air bags are safer.

(C) is totally irrelevant. The question is, which car is safer? We already know cars with air bags are more likely to be in an accident.

(E) is also irrelevant. We know air bags reduce the risk of injury; how often they deploy doesn't matter.

Does that clear this up for you?

[daijob]

So the author thinks rate is more important than seriousness when he/she made the conclusion about safety, correct?
And this is reflected on answer D, "at least as."?

[rinagoldfield]

Hi Daijob,

Put another way, the conclusion says “cars with air bags are equally safe or less safe than cars without air bags.” Thus, the author thinks rate is as important OR more important than seriousness. (It’s definitely not less important.) (D) reflects this; “at least as” indicates “as important” or “more important.”

Best,
Rina