Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at the stimulus here. We’re being told that over 75% of voice recorder tapes taken from small airplanes in minor accidents have the pilots whistling before the minutes preceding the accident. So if passengers hear the pilot whistling, they should take precautions.
Now we’re asked to find a flaw in this argument. And clearly, the idea is that it might just be true that the pilot’s usually whistling anyway. For example, you could say that 100% of voice recorder tapes have the pilot breathing in the seconds preceding the accident. So if you hear the pilot breathing, you should take precautions. Obviously, that’s not a good argument, because pilots are breathing (hopefully) in 100% of flights taken anyway.
So now let’s take a look at (E), which tells us that the problem is that the argument fails to specify the percentage of all small airplane flights that involve relatively minor accidents. Does this actually matter for the sake of this argument? Let’s say it’s 1% of small airplane flights, or 42% of small airplane flights. Does that make a difference? No, because we’re concerned here about how the argument uses the whistling, and this answer choice doesn’t even mention the whistling, so it can’t be right.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
