Every driver in the United States is legally required to purchase liab

The answer is B

Conclusion - If there is no liability insurance then in case of damage to others they will be paying from their pocket for the damage and thus realizing this will drive more safely.

A- If drivers were not required to carry liability insurance, individuals would be unprotected from uninsured drivers with little money to pay for damages they cause. It is kind of weakening the conclusion indicating that drivers should have liability insurance
B. Drivers who cause bodily injury to another feel little or no regret for their actions - Not so much supporting the conclusion but the best choice

C. Responsible drivers and reckless drivers pay similar premiums for liability insurance - Out of context

D. The cost of liability insurance is more than some drivers can afford -Out of context

E. Most drivers would purchase liability insurance even if they were not required to do so by law - Out of context

According to choice B, drivers do not have regret for their act. But what if they have regret. In such case, high intensity of regret does not automatically convert to the higher compensation to the victim. This is another assumption we have to make to connect this answer choice with conclusions.

Here, look at choice C, there is no financial benefit for responsible and reckless driving because liability is covered in insurance. If liability insurance is removed, then definitely there are financial benefits for responsible driving over rackless driving. This is in line of the original conclusion.

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Drivers are required (by law) to buy liability insurance.
Politicians argue that this insurance is partly responsible for high rate of collisions.

For politicians argument (i.e. insurance is partly responsible for high rate of accidents) to hold good, we need to assume that drivers don't care about accidents they cause. Because, if we assume that drivers are morally good (feel regret for accidents), then they drive carefully, hence low rate of collisions. Then politicians argument shatters.

A. If drivers were not required to carry liability insurance, individuals would be unprotected from uninsured drivers with little money to pay for damages they cause.
Incorrect: Because politicians argument is about the liability insurance and the number of collisions, it doesn't bother about whether the drivers have little money or not

B. Drivers who cause bodily injury to another feel little or no regret for their actions.
Correct: if we negate this, then the politicians argument shatters

C. Responsible drivers and reckless drivers pay similar premiums for liability insurance.
Incorrect: Amount of premiums is out of scope

D. The cost of liability insurance is more than some drivers can afford.
Incorrect: Cost of liability insurance is something similar to premium, out of scope

E. Most drivers would purchase liability insurance even if they were not required to do so by law.
Incorrect: out of scope

VeritasKarishma GMATNinja

Please help as to why A is inccorrect

i think "c" should be the correct answer as if their is financial benefit for responsible driver than reckless driver will drive carefully too. I don't understand how "b" can be the correct answer.

generis VeritasKarishma Please help .

A cant be the answer, Assumption should always hold true: a person with little money, what about the one with huge money it doesnot affect.

Answer is C, if anyone think B is answer, pls provide logical support.

Ans C, the argument required some sort of financial benefit (second last sentence) only c provides this.

This question is of very poor quality and highly debatable OA. I am going to tag it as such.

• Breaking down the prompt

Fact 1: All drivers must buy liability insurance to protect OTHER drivers cars and bodies.

Fact 2: Some politicians make an argument against liability insurance.

Opinion 1: Those politicians argue that liability insurance is bad.
They believe that it is partly responsible for the high rate of car crashes. Why do they believe this fact?
→ They argue that liability insurance REDUCES the DRIVERS’ FINANCIAL INCENTIVES to drive more safely [INTERIM CONCLUSION]
Opinion 2/main conclusion: If drivers were required to pay directly for damage, drivers would driver more carefully.

FINANCIAL INCENTIVE is key. No option is an unstated link to the interim or final conclusion.


This answer cuts both ways. See my analysis below. It starts with a green bullet point.

Supports: Because the people cannot pay, they drive more carefully.

Does not support: Those who cannot pay drive as recklessly as they please because they think, "The authorities cannot make me pay for damages with money I do not have."


WTH? Oy. Does not support.

If drivers who cause crashes and hurt people feel no regret and thus drive recklessly,
the politicians reason to themselves, "Perhaps we can incentivize them in a way that has nothing to do with emotions.
We will make everyone pay directly. That hurts their pocketbook. Now it is in their self-interest to drive more safely.
We can give them a financial incentive in place of the psychological incentive that they should have but do not."

The problem with B is the highlighted "thus" above.
The politicians want to incentivize the bad drivers financially.
We cannot leap from "feel no emotional regret" to "WILL feel self-interested financial need to avoid expensive crashes."
They could still feel regret and drive recklessly.
Every person I know has felt guilty about something and continued to do the bad behavior anyway.
Who or what says that feeling regret equals a financial incentive to drive more safely? Not one word.


This option is the closest to an answer, but it is not good.

We are not being asked whether the politicians are factually correct.
We are being asked to find an assumption upon which they rely to draw their conclusion.
"Out of scope" does not tell me very much. Why?

Somewhat supports the conclusion: if politicians assume (C) then they believe that bad drivers right now have NO financial incentive to drive better.
In fact, bad drivers may have a financial advantage right now. They cause crashes and it costs them no more than a person who does not cause crashes.

If bad drivers had to pay out of pocket, that fact might be financial incentive for them to drive more safely because paying for property damage and bodily harm out of pocket is a lot more expensive than paying for liability insurance.

FINANCIAL INCENTIVE is key. This answer is the only one that makes any sense. And it's not very good.


This answer has no bearing on anything. Bye.


This assumption is either neutral or hurts the politicians’ argument.
If most drivers would purchase liability insurance anyway, then NOT requiring it by law will have little to no “financial incentive” effect.

warrior1991 , option A cannot be correct. It cuts both ways. I see where you are coming from, though.

• OPTION A cuts both ways. The problem is that we do not know whether the people who cannot pay are conscientious.

1. Assume that people with little money are conscientious.

If we focus on the people who cannot pay out of pocket for all that damage, then we could say,
"Well, they know that they cannot pay for car crashes, and now they have no insurance, so they will drive more carefully."
You are right: that line of reasoning is pro-conclusion.

2. Assume that people with little money are not conscientious. Stress is on 'CANNOT PAY."
Now (A) undermines the conclusion.

If I cannot pay, I also cannot be incentivized financially. I simply do not pay.
How am I incentivized to drive more safely? If I get in a crash, they can't make me pay -- I don't have the money.
I drive as recklessly as I please because they cannot make me pay for damages with money I do not have.
I am too poor to be hurt in the pocketbook.

Analogy: lawmakers decide that homeless people are a problem.
The politicians pass a law: if you are homeless, you pay a big fine.
Just one problem. They are homeless. They have no money to pay any fines.
They are beyond being incentivized financially.

3. Assume conscientious people. Revoking the law is unnecessary.
The law is beside the point. It's a dumb argument.
People who cannot pay are likely to buy insurance. The law doesn't matter. There is no need to change the requirement.
If I know that I cannot pay, then I am better off buying insurance whether there IS a law that requires me to do so or not.

I also think that the words in the option are screaming for us to not choose A.
It could be argued that as a matter of policy, option A is a BAD RESULT of what the politicians are concluding, not what they are assuming.
Focus on the sense of danger created: individuals would be unprotected.
What politician in her right mind would argue FOR (1) unprotected people who (2) cannot get compensated?
Option A would be a bad result of the politicians' policy—they cannot be assuming that it is better for people to be unprotected.

The negation test sort of works, I grant you that much.
If drivers WERE required to carry liability insurance, individuals WOULD be protected from uninsured drivers with little money to pay for damages they cause.

But I can make the negation test work for B and C. Now what?

I know how hard it is to find good questions.
But I cannot support this question. At all.

This question is not worth worrying about.

None of the options is an assumption.

A. If drivers were not required to carry liability insurance, individuals would be unprotected from uninsured drivers with little money to pay for damages they cause.
This is a possible result of abolishing the requirement to purchase liability insurance. We don't know whether the uninsured drivers will have little money or enough money to pay for damages.
The argument is certainly not assuming that drivers will not have enough money to pay. If anything, it works only if people have money to pay for damages. If they don't, they won't fear losing it anyway.
This is not an assumption.

B. Drivers who cause bodily injury to another feel little or no regret for their actions.
What drivers feel or don't feel after they cause harm is absolutely irrelevant. I would still debate the relevance of "drivers have little or no regard for people's safety and are ruled by finances" kind of a statement. But what those who harm people feel is absolutely irrelevant. A regret later on doesn't imply that they will be careful in the first place.
This is not an assumption (nor is any other option).

My assumption was :
In which case, drivers wouldn't would drive more carefully although required to pay directly for any damage they cause?

Pre-thinking : If the cost of insurance doesn't matter for them.

Hence chose D, which was in-line with my pre-thinking.

Can someone explain why the answer is B?

Every driver in the United States is legally required to purchase liability insurance that protects other individuals in the event that the driver causes property damage or bodily injury. Some politicians argue that this insurance is partly responsible for the high rate of automobile collisions, because it reduces the drivers’ financial incentives to operate their automobiles in a safe and responsible manner. If drivers were required to pay directly for any damage they cause, they would drive more carefully.

The politicians’ argument makes which of the following assumptions?
Analysis: assumption
Cause --> Effect
Financial incentive--> high accident/less careful driving
No Financial incentive--> less accident/more careful driving

Conclusion: politician says financial incentive from insurance is only cause of the high rate of accident.
what can weaken the conclusion: if there is some other alternative cause for this or high accidents are independent of financial incentive.
So the politician assumes that there is no alternate cause such as human sympathy for this or some data showing that high accidents are dependent on financial incentive

A. If drivers were not required to carry liability insurance, individuals would be unprotected from uninsured drivers with little money to pay for damages they cause. --> this will not support the conclusion: individual are unprotected by insurance by need to be paid by the uninsured driver

B. Drivers who cause bodily injury to another feel little or no regret for their actions. --> correct: align w/ analysis

C. Responsible drivers and reckless drivers pay similar premiums for liability insurance. --> irrelevant: no comparison between between drivers will support the conclusion

D. The cost of liability insurance is more than some drivers can afford. --> irrelevant: who can afford or who can't afford doesn't help

E. Most drivers would purchase liability insurance even if they were not required to do so by law. --> irrelevant: purchase of insurance, not required by law will not support the conclusion

The correct answer is option C.

Since the assumption is the connecting link between the conclusion and premise, the correct answer would be one where if we negate the assumption the conclusion should fall [quoting the negation test]

A. If drivers were not required to carry liability insurance, individuals would be unprotected from uninsured drivers with little money to pay for damages they cause --> this actually hurts the politician's case - incorrect
D. The cost of liability insurance is more than some drivers can afford --> doesn't impact/influence the conclusion - incorrect
E. Most drivers would purchase liability insurance even if they were not required to do so by law --> doesn't impact/influence the conclusion - incorrect

B. Drivers who cause bodily injury to another feel little or no regret for their actions --> very tempting but wrong answer. Try negating it --> Drivers who cause bodily injury to another feel regret for their actions. Does this make the conclusion fall? If you said yes, think again. Just because someone regrets their actions, we cannot assume they will start driving responsibly from next time. It doesn't make the conclusion fall - incorrect

C. Responsible drivers and reckless drivers pay similar premiums for liability insurance --> negating it gives: responsible drivers and reckless drivers do not pay similar premiums for liability insurance.
Reckless drivers in fact pay more premium --> the more accidents one causes the more premium one would have to pay. If that doesn't stop one from driving recklessly then even paying directly from one's own pocket will not. This makes the conclusion fall.

Hence Option C - correct

Line of reasoning:
Insurance required --> no financial responsibilities --> drive carelessly
No insurance --> drivers have to pay the damages in full --> drive more carefully

Direct Assumption: insurance (financials) is the only factor to encourage drivers to drive carefully.
Subtle way to express the assumption: all the drivers do not care (feel regret) anything else, such as injuries of others, except financials --> Option B