Lobbyist: Those who claim that automobile exhaust emissions are a risk to public health are mistaken. During the last...

Ravi on August 16, 2019

@Sidra,

Happy to help. Let's look at all of them.

The conclusion of the lobbyist's argument is that automobile exhaust
emissions are not a risk to public health. The lobbyist supports this
claim by saying that even though exhaust emissions have increased over
the last century, every indicator of public health improved a lot
during the same time period.

This argument is flawed because there are all sorts of reasons for why
exhaust emissions could hurt human health even though people have been
getting healthier over the last century. Perhaps there are other
factors at play that made people healthier (advances in medicine,
better nutrition, etc.). It's entirely possible that those factors
have made people healthier despite the health risks that are created
by automobile exhaust.

We're looking for the answer with a similar flaw to that found in the stimulus.

(A) says, "inspecting commercial airplanes for safety is unnecessary
because the number of commercial airplane crashes has decreased over
the last decade"

The problem with (A) is that its conclusion says that inspecting
commercial planes is unnecessary, whereas the argument in the stimulus
never concludes that something is unnecessary. Rather, the argument in
the stimulus concludes that something is not risky. If (A) had instead
said that commercial airplanes aren't dangerous, then it would have
been a better answer. Thus, (A) is out.

(B) says, "smoking cigarettes is not bad for one’s health because not
all cigarette smokers get smoking-related illnesses"

The problem with (B) is that its premise isn't parallel to the premise
of the argument in the stimulus. In (B), the premise is that not all
cigarette smokers get smoking-related illnesses. For (B) to be
correct, it would have had to say something like "the number of
smoking-related illnesses has gone down," so we can get rid of this
answer choice.

(C) says, "using a cell phone while driving is not dangerous because
the number of traffic accidents has decreased since the invention of
the cell phone"

(C)'s structure matches the stimulus really well. It's possible that
using a cell phone while driving may still be dangerous even though
the number of accidents has gone down. Perhaps cars on the road now
have more safety features and we have better roadways, helping people
to avoid accidents. There could be other factors that reduce the
number of car accidents even though using a cell phone while driving
is something that still increases the likelihood of a car accident, so
this is how (C) matches the stimulus well. Thus, it's the correct
answer choice.

(D) says, "skydiving is not dangerous because the number of injuries
to skydivers has decreased in recent years"

The problem with (D) is that its premise is about how the number of
injuries has decreased in recent years. In order for (D) to be
correct, it would need to say that the number of injuries has
decreased since skydiving first started, so we can get rid of this
answer choice.

(E) says, "people with insurance do not need to lock their doors
because if anything is stolen the insurance company will pay to
replace it"

The part of (E)'s argument about the insurance company isn't parallel
to the stimulus, as we would need a statement about how incidents of
break-ins to cars have gone down, so we can get rid of (E).

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions!