A recent study of 10,000 people who were involved in automobile accidents found that a low percentage of those drivin...

BenMingov on October 22, 2019

Hi Tomgbean, thanks for the question.

I think an easier way to think about this question is just to reason through it.

The stimulus is saying of the 10,000 people surveyed who had been in automobile accidents, a low percentage driving large autos were injured but a high percentage driving small autos were injured.

It then concludes that you are less likely to be injured in a car accident using a large auto than a small auto. However, what if every single time you drove a large auto, there was an accident? So, even if injury was only sustained 5% of the time, wouldn't this be more risky than driving a small auto that had very rare accidents but perhaps a 20% risk of injury.

Answer choice D plays on this idea. That just because the risk of injury per accident is smaller, does not mean it is safer overall.

Hope this helps!

tomgbean on October 26, 2019

The problem I have with this answer choice is that the stimulus says that a higher percentage of people driving small vehicles get into accidents than people driving large vehicles. D simply just says that the that people are more likely to be involved in an accident if they are driving larger vehicles. I understand how percentages may be different than actual values but what if the numbers are much closer? what if ever 4 in 5 times a person drives a large vehicle they get into an accident that caused an injury 5% of the time and people driving smaller vehicles are involved in accidents 3 out of 5 times they drive their vehicles with 20% injury accurrances. If we calculate those numbers people driving smaller cars get into accidents .8 times more than people driving larger cars....I think I have done the math right lol math is not my strong suite ((3/5)*.20=.12 vs. (4/5)*.5=.4)

Skylar on November 16, 2019

@tomgbean, maybe I can help!

The passage never says that a higher percentage of people driving small vehicles get into accidents as compared to those driving large vehicles. It only says that a higher percentage of those in the study driving small vehicles were injured.

I see the point that you are making, but the very fact that we can say "well what if the numbers were like this?" shows that we do not have enough information to determine what the numbers actually are and therefore we cannot rule out any possible situation. Perhaps the numbers are close, but perhaps they aren't (as in Ben's scenario) - in which case (D) could very well be possible. If this were possible, it would seriously weaken the argument, which is what we're looking for in this question.

Does that make sense? Let us know if you have any further questions!