In Wareland last year, 16 percent of licensed drivers under 21 and 11

Hello, dcoolguy. There are a few ways to improve your timing. First, if all of the choices were good to you here, then you have to study how to pick apart options to spot flaws. Answer choice (D), for instance, shifts away from the argument concerning drivers in the 65-and-older group and replaces this target group with drivers ages 18-24 as representative of the older group in a completely different comparison. Certainly, this cannot be a required assumption, and the option should prove an easy (maybe 20-second) elimination. Look for the most obvious flaws in your initial pass of the answer choices. If you cannot make heads or tails of something, just mark it as a maybe and move on. The longer you sit there and mull over an answer choice, especially if you have not looked at the others, the greater the likelihood that you will grow nervous and more time-conscious, factors that will not help you arrive at an accurate conclusion. On this point of advice, I myself may sometimes come across a puzzling answer choice, and I treat it as though the text has a big black box over it. Suddenly, the answer pool has narrowed to four options. Based on experience, I know it is highly unlikely that two answer choices in the same set will confound me, so I work with those other four. I see what I can chisel away, starting with more glaring issues, then working with what is left. At some point, I may have narrowed my options to one that I can "see" and the other, the black-box answer. If I cannot disprove the visible answer, I select it and move on; if I can, I go for the black box and move on. What is crucial is that I keep moving.

No one answers every Verbal question with 100 percent confidence—the test is designed to exploit weaknesses at many levels and in many forms—and anyone who claims otherwise is probably trying to sell you something. All you can do is give yourself the highest probability you can that what you think is correct in a given question ends up being correct. You improve your accuracy by fine-tuning your approach to any type of question the test can throw at you. Practice may not make perfect, but practice will make you better, provided you take the time to adequately study the questions you come across.

Thank you for thinking to ask. It is an honor to have been mentioned alongside other GMAT Club legends.

- Andrew

Hi dcoolguy.

AndrewN has given you some good ideas for how to handle this question when taking the GMAT, even if I think practice can perhaps make you a bit more perfect than what he said implies. So, I'll focus on how to handle this question when practicing, and here's my thought for you.

When practicing, stick with each verbal practice question until you are close to 100 percent sure of your answer. Generally, it doesn't make sense to answer a practice question "with 70-80 % confidence." When you answer a verbal practice question without being virtually certain of your choice, you lose an opportunity to develop strong GMAT verbal skills. You're way better off spending even 10 minutes or more on a question and figuring out how to be close to 100 percent confident of your answer because, what you figure out to do to become close to 100 percent confident of your answer to one question you can then apply to other questions going forward. On the other hand, if you move on from a question before you are close to certain of your choice, then you won't have learned to become certain and you won't be certain of your answers to other questions that you see in the future.

Meanwhile, if you practice by taking the time to become close to 100 percent sure of your answers, you won't have to worry as much about time per question as you may think because, by using the strong skills you develop, you'll be able to answer verbal questions quickly.

For more discussion of how to practice GMAT verbal for maximum results, see this post. Three Key Practice Tips for Mastering GMAT Verbal

I realize that this question is discussed at nauseum. However, based on the Official Guide's explanation for this question, I am still confused as to why Choice C is incorrect based on the pre-thinking examples mentioned by the Official Guide.

The Official Guide says, "several factors other than greater experience and caution could explain the lower accident rate among the older drivers...." and provides several reasons below:
1.) "or perhaps the older drivers are more often retired, their schedules less often lead them to drive at times of day when accident rates are greater for everyone"
2.) "or they might be more likely to live in rural areas with less traffic and lower accident rates"

The OG then says choice C is incorrect because "even if drivers 65 and older are just as likely as younger drivers to drive in inclement weather, they may do so far more carefully than the younger drivers, so the holder drivers' greater experience and caution could still explain their lower accident rates." I understand how the OG can negate this argument, but the GMAT's other possible reasons mentioned in its "reasoning" section above can also be negated using this same reasoning in that:
1.) even if drivers 65 and older are just as likely as younger drivers to drive at times of day when accident rates are greater for everyone, they may do so far more carefully than the younger drivers, so the holder drivers' greater experience and caution could still explain their lower accident rates
2.) even if drivers 65 and older are just as likely as younger drivers to live in rural areas with less traffic and lower accident rates, they may still drive far more carefully than the younger drivers, so the holder drivers' greater experience and caution could still explain their lower accident rates.

I have seen it mentioned on the GMATCLUB that you shouldn't really rely on the Official Guide's explanation, but they seem to undermine their pre-thinking examples based on how they justify why choice C is incorrect.

Another question: To confirm, Choice A is the best answer because you can only really make this argument more foolproof if you are using similar mileage as a fair comparison.

Would it be the case that similar sample sizes were used in forming these statistics as another assumption that the argument depends upon? For example, it would not necessarily make sense to compare two people in 65+ group to 1,000 people in the 21 & under group to 10,000 people in the 21-24 age group.

Thank you in advance!

Look at (C) again. (C) is quite different from (A) because (C) does not include "not."

As a result (C) is a weakener. After all, rather state the assumption that there is NOT an alternative cause of the lower accident rates, (C) PRESENTS an alternative cause, which is basically that older drivers don't drive in bad weather. By presenting an alternative cause, (C) weakens the case for believing that the greater experience and developed habits of caution possessed by drivers in the 65-and-older are the causes.

These two, which are based on what you mentioned, are also weakeners.

1.) the older drivers are more often retired, their schedules less often lead them to drive at times of day when accident rates are greater for everyone
2.) the older drivers are more likely to live in rural areas with less traffic and lower accident rates

A necessary assumption is (C) or one of those two + NOT.

So, your analysis is spot on, you just missed that all of them, including (C) would be assumptions with the addition of NOT. So, because they don't include NOT, none of them are assumptions that the argument relies on.

Well, the mileage does not have to be similar, but the miles driven by the older drivers can't be very many fewer. After all, if the miles driver by older drivers are very many fewer, then that lower mileage could be the cause of the lower accident rates.

The sample sizes do not have to be similar. Of course, a sample size of 2 would be too small to effectively support an argument about accident rates, but the argument would work just fine if the sample sizes were, for example, 1000, 10,000, and 20,000. After all, the argument is about accident rates. The sample size would not affect the accident rate as long as the sample size is not simply too small to support any argument about accident rates.

Seen all explanations but not sure of why not E. The passage does not specify that the younger population is the one which is below 24 years old. It could very well include 24-65 year olds as well. The fact that is so, if we have any age bracket in this range who has accident rate of say 1% the argument would break cuz conclusion says 'the more experienced, lower the accidents' but here if we are to compare the aforementioned age bracket to 65+ year olds then our conclusion fails as the lower age bracket has basically just 1% accident rate, which is lower than that of 65+ year olds avigutman KarishmaB GMATNinja MartyTargetTestPrep

The last line of the passage mentions "the younger drivers."

Since it says "THE younger drivers" rather than simply "younger drivers," we can understand it to be referring specifically to the younger drivers mentioned earlier in the passage.

So, "the younger drivers" would not include younger drivers other than the ones mentioned.

Would you please explain why it cannot be the case?

The conclusion is: the greater experience and developed habits of caution possessed by drivers in the 65-and-older group make them far safer behind the wheel than the younger drivers are.

Answer choice (E): There is no age bracket for which the accident rate is lower than it is for licensed drivers 65 and older.

Hypothetical age brackets:

• less than 21:16%
• 21-24: 11%
• 25-35: 1%
• 35-64: 69%
• 65 and older 3%

• In age bracket 25-35, which ,as concerned in the conclusion, is younger than +65, but the accident rate is lower than it is for licensed drivers 65 and older.
  This type of age bracketing would undermine the conclusion, since 25-35 is younger than 65, but while they have less experience and developed habits of caution, they are safer.
• On the other hand 35-64, with 69% accident rate, despite the fact that has the greater experience and developed habits of caution than the younger drivers have, is not safer than younger (>21, 21-24)

The argument is comparing 'upto 24' with 'more than 65' and no one else. The conclusion says that 'more than 65' drivers are safer because of their experience than THE YOUNGER DRIVERS (upto 24 drivers). It is not comparing 'more than 65' with all younger drivers, only THE younger drivers it mentions (upto 24 ones).

­If we negate the option E from the question given.
(E) There is no an age bracket for which the accident rate is lower than it is for licensed drivers 65 and older.

This negated assumption implies that there will be an age group, for example 40-45 has less serious accident rates then 65 and older. And the above implication will put the conclusion at risk which states that "the greater experience possessed by drivers in the 65-and-older group make them far safer behind the wheel than the younger drivers".

One can argue that The conclusion is comparing drivers 65 and older to younger drivers, specifically those under 24. But no where, in the conlclusion I can see explicit mention of it and even conclusion called out that "65-and-older group make them far safer behind the wheel than the younger drivers". So, does 25-64 are not considered younger than 65?

 

 

Note that the meaning of words depends on the context. Here, the comparison is ONLY between two groups - 'upto 24' and 'more than 65'.

Conclusion: the greater experience and developed habits of caution possessed by drivers in the 65-and-older group make them far safer behind the wheel than the younger drivers are.

So when I say  "this leads to the conclusion that the 'more than 65' group drivers are safer than THE younger drivers," I am talking specifically about the younger drivers I have mentioned before (the upto 24 ones). 
Without the use of "THE" in the conclusion you might have been able to make a case for all drivers younger than 65, but not here.

Yes, you do need to focus on every word of the argument and understand what it means in context.  

­­

GMATNinja KarishmaB chetan2u bb

I have a doubt regarding Option A,

What is the relation between fewer miles & accidents? Even if the average number miles driven is way lesser than youth's, can there be not many accidents relative to youths?

Can anyone please help me resolve this doubt?


Thank you thank you so much!

There are four pages of discussion here. I’m sure someone has addressed your question already... no?

Hi

Say X has scored 200 goals and Y has scored 20 goals. From this, can we say that X is a better player.

What if X has played 200 matches for the 200 goals he scored while Y scored the 20 goals in just the 4 matches he has played now?
Surely the equation changes now..

Same logic is being applied in the question here..
An accident could happen only when someone drives on the road. If 65+ aged drivers hardly move out on the road, the likelihood of theirs getting involved in accident goes down. So, 65+ drivers may not be safer behind wheels but may be present for very few times in situations that could lead to accidents.

Of course you still cannot be 100% sure about who drives more safely. But you do have another data that could be the reason for lesser accidents.

chetan2u

Makes sense. Thanks Chetan!

The argument claims that older drivers (65 and older) are far safer behind the wheel than younger drivers, based on accident statistics. The reasoning is that greater experience and habits of caution are responsible for the lower accident rate among older drivers.

Breaking Down the Assumption
For this conclusion to hold, we must assume that there is no other major factor influencing the accident rates besides driving experience and caution.

One potential issue is driving frequency—if older drivers drive significantly fewer miles than younger drivers, their lower accident rate might simply be due to less time on the road rather than greater caution or experience.

Thus, the argument depends on the assumption that older drivers do not drive significantly fewer miles than younger drivers, making (A) the correct answer.

Answer Choices Analysis
(A) Correct. If older drivers drove significantly fewer miles, their lower accident rate could be explained by exposure rather than skill. The argument assumes this is not the case.

(B) Irrelevant. The percentage of older drivers in the total population does not affect the conclusion about their relative safety.

(C) Weakens the argument. If older drivers avoid risky conditions (e.g., bad weather), their lower accident rate might be due to that rather than experience. This would challenge the argument rather than support it.

(D) Not necessary. The argument compares older drivers (65+) to younger drivers as a whole, not just the difference between the under-21 and 21-24 age groups.

(E) Out of scope. Even if no age group has a lower accident rate than 65+, it doesn’t establish why older drivers have fewer accidents.

analysis -
even if we are not given the absolute numbers it doesn't matter since we are not comparing NUMBERS within the segments, we are comparison each segment as it own percentage. so 16 percent within 21 age and 3 percent over 65 age, numbers don't matter. only percentages are getting compared.

A - clearly breaks the argument by saying that its not due to "more experience" of driving that leads to low percentage but in actuality they drive less or go to road more less than others and hence less chances of accidents and hence low percentage.

C - its a weakener, it brings out an alternate cause. it would be correct if its negated option was stated. then it would strengthen and its negation would weaken, right now its doing opposite.

D - doesn't talk about over 65.

E - FINE, but does it mean that their low percentage is due to more experience driving?

Here are a couple of posts on (E) that might help:

• https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-wareland- ... l#p1882736
  
• https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-wareland- ... l#p2466182

Enjoy!