Springfield Fire Commissioner: The vast majority of false fire alarms

The "announced effect" is that removing the fire alarm boxes on street corners "will reduce the number of prank calls without hampering people's ability to report a fire."

Why does the commissioner believe that removing those alarm boxes will reduce the number of prank calls? "The vast majority of false fire alarms are prank calls made anonymously from fire alarm boxes." The commissioner implies that it would be more difficult to make anonymous prank calls from private telephones rather than from public fire alarm boxes on street corners, but what if that isn't the case?

Also, what if removing those public fire alarm boxes limits people's ability to report fires? According to the commissioner, this is not a problem "since virtually everyone has access to a private telephone."

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the claim that the proposal, if carried out, "will reduce the number of prank calls without hampering people's ability to report a fire."?



The commissioner claims that the number of prank calls would be reduced if people could only report fires with private telephones rather than with public fire alarm boxes. But what if people could still make anonymous reports from their private telephones? That would weaken the commissioners argument. Choice (A) assures us that the private calls will, in fact, be traced, likely discouraging people from making prank calls from their private telephones. Thus, (A) supports the commissioner's claim.



The cost of maintaining the fire alarm boxes has nothing to do with the effect that removing those boxes would have on the number of prank calls or people's ability to report fires. Eliminate (B).



Choice (C) describes a possible advantage of reporting fires with private telephones instead of fire alarm boxes. However, as with choice (B), this has nothing to do with the effect that removing those boxes would have on the number of prank calls or people's ability to report fires. (C) is out.



Choice (D) explains a negative consequence of prank calls but does give us any reason to believe that removing the fire alarm boxes would reduce the number of prank calls. Eliminate (D).



Choice (E) might strengthen the commissioner's claim that the "alarm boxes have outlived their usefulness," but it does not support the commissioner's claim that the proposal "will reduce the number of prank calls without hampering people's ability to report a fire." Eliminate (E).

Choice (A) is the best answer.
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One of the premises given by the author is that "virtually everyone has access to a private telephone", which they can use to call in a fire alarm. This would include the people who currently use the fire alarm boxes to make prank calls. Suppose all the fire alarm boxes are removed. The pranksters can still use their private phones to make phone calls, and so the amount of prank calls will not necessarily be reduced. But if the fire department traces all calls made from private phones and are able to determine where they came from (and potentially the identity of the prank caller), this would discourage the pranksters from calling and would thus probably result in a reduction in the amount of prank calls.

I go with A.

A - CORRECT. Indicates that the telephones will allow the fire department to trace the location of the fire (just like the fire alarms).
B - Out of scope
C - Hmmm....This also makes sense, but A is BETTER.
D - Irrelevant
E - incomplete

I did not go with C for two reasons.

i) C is not clear on whether it is referring to Private or Public phones.
ii) Also the question is more on how to reduce the prank calls. C gives us no explanation on how prank calls are/will be reduced. Some one in City A can call from a telephone and say that City B building X is on fire.

However if we do consider A as the option

i) It supports that Prank calls can be reduced as we can clearly trace to the person who used the private phone
ii) As almost every one has access to private phone, people can still report the alarms.

What do you think?

The proposed affect is: "Removing the boxes will reduce the number of prank calls without hampering people’s ability to report a fire".

A. The fire department traces all alarm calls made from private telephones
and records where they came from. Seems to support the argument

B. Maintaining the fire alarm boxes costs Springfield approximately
five million dollars annually. Out of scope...issue not associated with cost

C. A telephone call can provide the fire department with more information
about the nature and size of a fire than can an alarm placed from an alarm box. Issue is not about the details of the fire

D. Responding to false alarms significantly reduces the fire department’s
capacity for responding to fires. Issue is not about reliability...its about prank calls

E. On any given day, a significant percentage of the public telephones
in Springfield are out of service.Out of scope

What is the OA?

I still cannot get why A is correct. Are you guys going by elimination because B,C,D,E may be eliminated. I guess we want to support removal of boxes reducing prank calls

Used POE to reach A

Tracking calls from private telephones reduces the prank calls hence, supporting the whole reason why the boxes are removed in the first place A. The fire department traces all alarm calls made from private telephones
and records where they came from.

Irrelevant B. Maintaining the fire alarm boxes costs Springfield approximately
five million dollars annually.

Irrelevant C. A telephone call can provide the fire department with more information
about the nature and size of a fire than can an alarm placed
from an alarm box.

True but out of Scope D. Responding to false alarms significantly reduces the fire department’s
capacity for responding to fires.

Irrelevant E. On any given day, a significant percentage of the public telephones
in Springfield are out of service.

We are not exactly looking to support removal of boxes to reduce prank calls. The issue is that the boxes are installed on street corners without any monitoring. So anyone can press it and walk away - a lot of pranks. So the idea is to REDUCE PRANKS BY REMOVING THE BOXES. HENCE FORCING PEOPLE TO USE THEIR HOME PHONE. So how does the home phone help in reducing pranks ? Coz the Fire Dept is tracking all calls made from home phone. So you better not think about playing a prank from your home phone.

Here you go ...

Answer: A

"virtually everyone has access to a private telephone", which they can use to call in a fire alarm. This would include the people who currently use the fire alarm boxes to make prank calls.
Suppose all the fire alarm boxes are removed. The pranksters can still use their private phones to make phone calls, and so the amount of prank calls will not necessarily be reduced. But if the fire department traces all calls made from private phones and are able to determine where they came from (and potentially the identity of the prank caller), this would discourage the pranksters from calling and would thus probably result in a reduction in the amount of prank calls.
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got it wrong though , now i understand OA is A

"A. The fire department traces all alarm calls made from private telephones
and records where they came from."

Because conclusion was that they can now receive calls from private phones.. and option A suggest that they are able to receive and process each and every private call.

Springfield Fire Commissioner: the vast majority of false fire alarms are prank calls made anonymously from fire alarm boxes on street corners. Since virtually everyone has access to a private telephone, these alarm boxes have outlived their usefulness. Therefore, we propose to remove the boxes. Removing the boxes will reduce the number of prank calls without hampering people’s ability to report a fire.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the claim that the proposal, if carried out, will have the announced effect?
The stimulus is a strengthen question. We need to find out what supports the conclusion of the fire commissioner.

His conclusion: Removing the call boxes will reduce the number of prank phone calls without interfering with fire reports.
His premise: Majority of false fire alarms are pranks from anonymous people. Everyone has a private telephone.

So to support the stimulus we need to find an answer choice that will demonstrate why removing the boxes will reduce prank phone calls.


A. The fire department traces all alarm calls made from private telephones
and records where they came from. If the anonymity of the call boxes is what promotes people to make prank phone calls then this is an ideal answer choice. If you remove the anonymity then there will be less prank calls.

B. Maintaining the fire alarm boxes costs Springfield approximately five million dollars annually.
The costs is irrelevant to the prank phone calls made from call boxes.

C. A telephone call can provide the fire department with more information about the nature and size of a fire than can an alarm placed
from an alarm box.
The ability to report more info about a fire is also irrelevant to reducing prank phone calls through the call boxes.

D. Responding to false alarms significantly reduces the fire department’s capacity for responding to fires.
This answer choice involves how to deal with false alarms but it does not discuss how to deal with reducing them.

E. On any given day, a significant percentage of the public telephones in Springfield are out of service.
Still irrelevant to reducing prank phone calls.

Powerscore CR Bible states for Strengthens Questions suing the following steps -

1. Identify the conclusion - Therefore, we propose to remove the boxes.
2. Personalize the argument - Removing the alarm boxes will reduce prank calls , however the fire incidents are reported by private telephones.
3. Look for weakness in the argument - Removing the boxes will reduce the number of prank calls but it will hamper people’s ability to report a fire.

Now check the options -

4. Argument of analogy/surveys - strengthen the analogy
5. Correct argument will strengthen the argument just a Little / Lot




The fire department traces all alarm calls made from private telephones and( false alarm calls can be reduced) records where they came from ( Functions as an alarm Box)

Hence correct Answer is (A)
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I have a small question about this...I totally agree that answer choice A is correct. When I did the question, I reasoned for answer choice E that removing "fire alarm boxes" won't have any effect on the number of prank calls because those pesky kids would just go to the "public telephones" and make their anonymous call from there. Therefore, because most of those "public telephones" are out of service, the number of anonymous prank calls would reduce by removing the "fire alarm boxes"

Any way to challenge that logic?

Springfield Fire Commissioner: The vast majority of false fire alarms are prank calls made anonymously from fire alarm boxes on street corners. Since virtually everyone has access to a private telephone, these alarm boxes have outlived their usefulness. Therefore, we propose to remove the boxes. Removing the boxes will reduce the number of prank calls without hampering people's ability to report a fire.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the claim that the proposal, if carried out, will have the announced effect?

(A) The fire department traces all alarm calls made from private telephones and records where they came from. - Correct. If the fire department is able to trace calls then the private phones can easily replace the street phone boxes.

(B) Maintaining the fire alarm boxes costs Springfield approximately five million dollars annually. -We are not worried about the cost of maintenance

(C) A telephone call can provide the fire department with more information about the nature and size of a fire than can an alarm placed from an alarm box. -We are worried about the prank calls and not the information on fire

(D) Responding to false alarms significantly reduces the fire department's capacity for responding to fires. -We know this information. This is just an inference

(E) On any given day, a significant percentage of the public telephones in Springfield are out of service. -This weakens the argument. If private phones are mostly out of service then the fire alarms on the streets can't be taken out of service.

The availability of public telephones is actually irrelevant if you consider the given fact that "virtually everyone has access to a private telephone." If the fire department didn't trace those calls, the calls made from private telephones would be just as anonymous as calls made from public telephones.

Until we know that (A) is true, we have no reason to believe that the pesky kids won't just use their private phones to make prank calls. If we did know that (A) were true, then (E) might help support the claim. But we also don't know anything about the number of public phones in Springfield or the exact percentage that are out of order.

Notice that the passage actually does NOT say that most public phones are out of service. A significant percentage could be 20%, 50%, 70%... or even something as small as 5% or 10%. Significant just means "sufficiently great or important to be worthy of attention." What qualifies as "significant" depends on the context. For example, if I said that 5% of the people in your country had contracted a highly-contagious, lethal virus, I think you'd agree that 5% is a significant percentage!

Also, how many public phones are there? If there are only a small number of public phones, the fact that a significant percentage are out of service may or may not change things very much.

(E) might help, but since we are looking for the answer choice that "most strongly supports the claim," (A) is a much better answer.
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Hi Expert,
I'm confused about the word We in red part. Here, all the stuffs are said by Springfield Fire Commissioner, NOT by ''prank callerS" right? In this argument, We is plural, but Springfield Fire Commissioner IS singular. So, my question is: HOW do someone know that the plural form We has been used in stead of the singular form Springfield Fire Commissioner
Thanks...
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AsadAbu, that's a perfectly reasonable thing to worry about on sentence correction, but it shouldn't really be a concern on CR.

It’s true that only one person, the Commissioner, is speaking. However, the commissioner of a fire department is the head of that department, just like the CEO is the head of a corporation. If I’m the head of my organization, and I’m announcing a new decision made by the organization, then it makes perfect sense to represent the entire organization, speaking on behalf of us and explaining why we have concluded that this is the right course of action.

I hope this helps!
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Springfield Fire Commissioner: The vast majority of false fire alarms are prank calls made anonymously from fire alarm boxes on street corners. Since virtually everyone has access to a private telephone, these alarm boxes have outlived their usefulness. Therefore, we propose to remove the boxes. Removing the boxes will reduce the number of prank calls without hampering people's ability to report a fire.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the claim that the proposal, if carried out, will have the announced effect?
*NOTE: We care about not hampering someones' ability to report a fire when the fire alarm boxes are removed*

(A) The fire department traces all alarm calls made from private telephones and records where they came from.
- The fire department can trace calls? that's new info. okay, so if fire alarm boxes were to be removed, people will still be able to report a fire (from private telephones). the number of prank calls would be reduced b/c of the removal of fire alarm boxes, and peoples' ability to report a fire will not be hampered b/c virtually everyone has access to a private telephone.

(B) Maintaining the fire alarm boxes costs Springfield approximately five million dollars annually.
- Who cares what maintaining fire alarm boxes costs?

(C) A telephone call can provide the fire department with more information about the nature and size of a fire than can an alarm placed from an alarm box.
- Out of scope. "A telephone call" is not the same as a call from a private telephone. That aside, we're not concerned with the details of a fire. We're concerned with: 1) reducing the # of prank calls; and 2) not hampering peoples' ability to report a fire

(D) Responding to false alarms significantly reduces the fire department's capacity for responding to fires.
- Well, no **** it does. Tell me something I don't know. How does this affect someones' ability (or inability) to report a fire?

(E) On any given day, a significant percentage of the public telephones in Springfield are out of service.
- - Who cares about public telephones?


Tricky question. Hopefully I was able to explain why the OA is A. Kudos please if you find this helpful