Strengthen with Necessary Premise Questions - - Question 7

More than a year ago, the city announced that police would crack down on illegally parked cars and that resources wou...

SuzieNewcome June 3, 2023

Depends on how you define "resources"

I interpreted "resources" diverted from writing speeding tickets as the revenue that speeding tickets generate for the police department to be used to pay for other purposes. If you look at it through this lens, then answer D works doesn't it? "the police could be cracking down on illegally parked cars and combating the drug problem without having to reduce writing speeding tickets". Essentially the question is how expensive fighting the drug problem is, and whether there are sufficient funds to cover other issues. If you have to reduce writing speeding tickets (and thus lose your source of funding) in order to address more than the drug problem, then the argument falls apart. I can see now that "resources" essentially was a placeholder for "officers". If you replace "resources" with "officers" in each place, then E totally makes sense - it all comes down to the # of tickets being given out and how many officers were there to do it. I feel like D was given as a trap for people like me who might interpret "resources" this way (and even the word "resources" chosen instead of "officers" or "units" as a way to muddy the waters). After all, most people know that police departments generate funds through issuing speeding tickets. Any tips for not falling into traps like this?

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Emil-Kunkin June 7, 2023

Hi, resources are an input, and in terms of writing tickets, the input is police time and the outcome is revenue (or safer roads, perhaps). While the initial sentence might be slightly unclear, the entire argument makes clear that the resources in question are officer time and equipment used to write tickets. In particular the final two sentences make it explicit.