Driving under the influence is a more severe problem among college students at rural and suburban universities than at urban universities. Social scientists wanted to determine how much of the problem is due to the distance students must drive to obtain alcohol. They looked at police records for incidents involving students at a number of universities, and compared those with the mean distances between student housing and bars and liquor stores. The longer the distances, the more likely students were to be arrested or involved in accidents.

Which of the following, if true, would it be most important to take into account in evaluating the result?
(A) Many college students do not purchase alcohol at bars or liquor stores.
(B) Students at rural, suburban, and urban universities are arrested for driving under the influence more frequently than are non-student members of their communities.
(C) The average enrollment at urban universities is greater than that at rural and suburban universities.
(D) Local sheriff's departments near rural and suburban universities devote more resources to identifying and arresting those driving under the influence than do urban police forces.
(E) The number of bars and liquor stores per square mile is nearly five times as high in urban areas as it is in rural and suburban areas.

hi. another vote for (D)!

see explanation here http://www.gmatdaily.com/20090908-answer.html

"The longer the distances, the more likely students were to be arrested or involved in accidents."

D supports the "arrested" but does not support "involved in accidents". more cops in rural areas can lead to greater arrests, but more cops does not lead to higher chances of students involved in accidents. Can someone explain.

Hi,

I have just visited the link and found that -

D) This is correct. The conclusion was drawn based on police records. If this choice is true, students driving under the influence near rural and suburban universities are more likely to be caught doing so (and thus appear in police records) than their counterparts at urban universities.

Do we have the term Police Records in the choice?
No, D) say -
Local sheriff's departments near rural and suburban universities devote more resources to identifying and arresting those driving under the influence than do urban police forces.

What if these resources are themselves drunk and not able to do their job? Having resources is not equal to having records.

Experts, please comment.
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It's D and not E.

It's D because D is offering a situation that affects the argument (distance to bars)-> (arrests)

It is offering that it's not distance to bars, but that it's (greater suburban police resources)->(arrests)

This would greatly affect our evaluation of the original argument, since we're finding another variable as responsible for the arrests.

E refers to density of bars/clubs. However it does not link this density to arrests. We might assume in our mind that greater density of bars leads to more DUI which leads to more arrests. But that link is not clear in E. Also, density has nothing to do with the original argument which had to do with distance to the bars. The bars could be very close to campus and very dense..OR they could be very very far away and just as dense.

Can someone please tell me why A is incorrect?