Motor coach driver: Professional drivers spend much more time driving

Question

Motor coach driver:  Professional drivers spend much more time driving, on average, than do other people and hence are more competent drivers than are other, less experienced drivers. Therefore, the speed limit on major highways should not be reduced, because that action would have the undesirable effect of forcing some people who are now both law-abiding and competent drivers to break the law.

Police ofﬁcer:  All drivers can drive within the legal speed limit if they wish, so it is not true to say that reducing the speed limit would be the cause of such illegal behavior.

The point at issue between the motor coach driver and the police ofﬁcer is whether

A. it would be desirable to reduce the speed limit on major highways
B. professional drivers will drive within the legal speed limit if that limit is reduced
C. reducing the speed limit on major highways would cause some professional drivers to break the law
D. professional drivers are more competent drivers than are other, less experienced drivers
E. all drivers wish to drive within the speed limit

Does break the law here mean different from reduce the speed limit? i was wrong to choose a as the answer.

GMATNinja · Accepted Answer

The driver's argument -- boiled down to its essence -- is that if the speed limit on highways is reduced, it'll cause professional drivers to break the law.

The officer retorts that people can do what they want, so if people speed, it's not the reduced speed limit that will cause them to break the law.

This is best captured in (C).

It's worth noting that option (B) might be awfully tempting. The reason it's wrong is that the driver and the officer don't disagree about what the professional drivers will  do . They both seem to accept that people will speed. They disagree about the underlying  cause  of the behavior. The driver says it would be the reduced speed limit. The officer disagrees, and says that it wouldn't be the fault of the new speed limit. Maybe it's that the drivers are adrenaline junkies. Maybe the drivers are just jerks. Whatever the cause, it's not the reduced speed limit.

I hope that clears things up!

veteranrookie · Answer

I do not think it does, the argument is that the motor coach thinks ''all professional drivers will break the law as they know they can drive in a proficient way and they won't choose to stay in the limit as the law will bring'', on the other hand the police officer says ''EVERYONE can stay in the speed limit if they WISH to.''

And motor coach thinks ''professional drivers WILL break the law as they WISH to drive in high speeds''

So the argument is one that professional drivers will break the law if the speed is reduced as they wish to drive in higher speeds

gillyelephant · Answer

Can someone explain why the answer isn't B? It's so similarly worded to C..

vivekkumar987 · Answer

There is only slight difference between B and C. to understand I rewrote the premise
Professional Less experienced driver
Time spent is high – so competent Time less when compared to pro
Coach conclusion: Don’t reduce the speed limit, because the profession who now obeys law will tend to break if the speed limit is reduced.

Police: if they wish, they can drive slow. So right now also professionals are willing to obey law so that they are driving in prescribed limits. 
So these people are debating if the speed limit is reduced , whether there will be a break in law?
Coach view: Yes they will break
Police: No , The chance is less
We have to understand that the conclusion is not yet arrived by the premise.

B. professional drivers will drive within the legal speed limit if that limit is reduced.
This option states that : driver will surely drive below the limits. So we cant deduce that. At the same time,argument topic is also different as I mentioned early.

C. reducing the speed limit on major highways would cause some professional drivers to break the law
Here the "would cause" phrase exactly describe it may or may not happen, and topic of debate I also correct

NA08 · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja  can you please explain this one?

VidyasagarP · Answer

.
Hi, I’ll try to clear the ambiguity
(B) ends up stating professional drivers whereas (C) mentions some professional drivers which is more precise as the coach says reduction in speed limit might lead to some breaking the law. 
Please be very careful and lookout for words like some, many, most, majority, few, every, all etc; they tend to alter the meaning and go unnoticed.

Posted from my mobile device

kaptainklutz · Answer

Hi Charles, 
I was wondering about option C - the question stem talks about the coach describing how a professional driver is better than most other drivers. Then it implies that if the speed is reduced, law-abiding and competent might be forced to break the law. The disagreement between the coach and officer also seems to be about why certain law-abiding and competent drivers would not break the law and not why "professional drivers" would break the law. Wouldn't that mean C is not addressing a relevant issue ?

unraveled · Answer

Motor coach driver:  Professional drivers spend much more time driving, on average, than do other people and hence are more competent drivers than are other, less experienced drivers. Therefore, the speed limit on major highways should not be reduced, because that action would have the undesirable effect of  forcing some people who are now both law-abiding and competent drivers to break the law .

Police ofﬁcer:   All drivers can drive  within the legal speed limit if they wish, so it is not true to say that reducing the speed limit would be the cause of such illegal behavior.

The point at issue between the motor coach driver and the police ofﬁcer is whether

A. it would be  desirable to reduce the speed limit  on major highways - WRONG. MCD agrees(sort of) with increased limit but cautions about its result. But PO disagree about that result and gives his/her perspective. 
B.  professional drivers will drive within the legal speed limit  if that limit is reduced - WRONG. Professional drivers are SOME people accord to MCD wherein PO talks about ALL people. 
C. reducing the speed limit on major highways would  cause some professional drivers to break the law  - CORRECT. Since ALL people include Professional drivers the point of contention becomes what this option brings on the table. 
D. professional drivers are  more competent drivers than are other , less experienced drivers - WRONG. Already said by MCD that PO does not say anything about. So, can't be considered whether it was the issue between them.
E.  all drivers wish  to drive within the speed limit - WRONG. Nothing about ALL drivers.

It was between B and C but B loses for the scope it covers accord to MCD where PO covers a scope that subsets the scope of MCD.

Answer C.

NA08 · Answer

GMATNinja Thanks a lot! You are a savior

GMATNinja · Answer

You raise a good question: who are these people that the coach thinks would be forced to break the law? In other words, who are these people that are "now both law-abiding and competent?" As you suggest, nailing this down will be crucial for the question.

Well, what people does the coach consider competent drivers? Based on the passage, the clearest answer would be professional drivers. The coach may consider non-professional drivers competent as well, but that's not directly addressed. But we do know that the coach considers professional drivers "more competent" than less experienced drivers. So when the coach concludes that "now both law-abiding and competent" drivers will be forced to break the law, the most reasonable interpretation is that he or she is referring to professional drivers.

I hope that helps!

adityar2812 · Answer

I was confused between (C) and (E). Why cannot we argue that professional drivers (included in All Drivers) want to drive within speed limits?

In fact, it should be easier for them to follow rules since they are more competent. It is the non-experienced drivers who will face difficulty in complying with changed laws.

GMATNinja · Answer

We're looking to the "point at issue" between the motor coach driver and the police officer. So, one of these answer choices will  split  the opinion of the two speakers: one will agree with the information in the answer choice, and one will disagree with that information.

Starting with (C):
 
The motor coach driver would AGREE with this information. He/she argues that reducing the speed limit would "force" motor coach drivers to break the law. The police officer, on the other hand, would DISAGREE with this information. According to the officer, everyone can choose to obey the new speed limit.

Because one speaker would agree with (C) and one would disagree with it, (C) is the point at issue between the two.

Compare that to (E):
 
The police officer says that all drivers can obey the speed limit IF they wish to do so. This is very different than saying that drivers actually DO wish to obey the speed limit. Maybe people are happy to do so, or maybe they are absolutely enraged about it. So, we can't say that the police officer would agree or disagree with (E).

Because we don't know how the officer feels about the informaiton in (E), it doesn't provide that clean split of opinion between the two speakers. That means that (E) isn't the point at issue.

(C) is the correct answer.

I hope that helps!

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Motor coach driver: Professional drivers spend much more time driving

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