Safety consultant: Judged by the number of injuries per licensed vehicle, minivans are the safest vehicles on the ro...

hannah93092 on May 23, 2018

Also curious about this!

Anita on May 24, 2018

@AnkitM @hannah93092 B may be tempting because the wording is familiar: It's almost exactly the first sentence. Except: it flips it around. The prompt tells us that based on number of accidents per vehicle, minivans are the safest. Answer B tells us that based on that same statistic, they're no safer.

That can't be true and the prompt be true! So it doesn't help.

Ceci on December 3, 2018

How does E strengthen? I'm confused. And why does C not work? Thanks in advance

Ravi on December 19, 2018

@ceci,

(E) strengthens the argument. (E) Braking and emergency handling capabilities are both safety features, and (E) directly attacks the safety of the minivans by stating that these safety features are worse than other vehicles of comparable size. This makes it less likely that the inherent safety of minivans is what explains why they have the lowest number of injuries per vehicle and more likely that this is explained by some other factor, such as minivans being driven primarily by low-risk drivers.

(C) makes the effect (that minivans have the lowest number of injuries per licensed vehicle) more impressive, but it fails to help explain why the minivans are the lowest number of injuries per licensed vehicle. It could be because of low-risk drivers, or it could be from something else.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions!

Shiyi-Zhang on February 20, 2019

Why is B incorrect?

Ravi on February 21, 2019

@Shiyi-Zhang,

Happy to help.

(B) says, "Judged by the number of accidents per licensed vehicle,
minivans are no safer than most other kinds of vehicles are."

If minivans are in the same number of accidents per licensed vehicle
as other automobiles, but they still have fewer injuries per vehicle
(which is provided as support in the stimulus), then this answer
choice makes it seem like the minivans themselves are safer. This does
not strengthen the author's argument, as it actually strengthens an
alternative explanation, so we can get rid of this answer choice.

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

noellerubino on May 26, 2019

I don't understand how E would strengthen the argument. If E is true then how would that be they are the safest vehicle?

sadaabrahman on September 14, 2019

Why does d not strengthen? Thanks

shunhe on January 1, 2020

Hi @noellerubino and @sadaabrahman,

I'll start off with how (E) strengthens the argument first. Let's say (E) is true. The safety consultant argues that minivans are safer because they are driven primarily by low-risk drivers, and not because they are inherently safer. (E) tells us essentially that minivans are actually inherently more dangerous vehicles - not being able to brake or handle as well in emergencies certainly makes a vehicle more dangerous to operate. Thus, (E) decreases the chance that the relative safety of minivans is due to inherent safety issues, which supports the idea that it might be because they're driven by lower-risk drivers, which is what the safety consultant is arguing.

As for why (D) isn't correct, (D) suggests that larger vehicles are more safe, and minivans are larger vehicles and would by this logic be safer. Thus, (D) gives an alternate explanation to why minivans have such a good safety record - not because they're driven primarily by lower-risk drivers, but because they're bigger and thus inherently safer. The safety consultant argues the opposite, and thus, this weakens her argument. Hope this helps!