Our legislature is considering passing legislation to ban skateboarding on city streets, citing safety concerns. However, a review of public health records reveals that the legislature’s concern is misplaced. Each year, many more people are injured while jogging than are injured while skateboarding. So in fact, skateboarding is safer than jogging.

Which of the following indicates a flaw in the reasoning above?


A. It fails to distinguish professional skateboarders who attempt very dangerous maneuvers from amateurs who are comparatively cautious. Incorrect

amateur and professional skateboarders are irrelevant to argument

B. It assumes without warrant that no one who skateboards also jogs. Incorrect

dont know this from argument

C. It fails to consider the number of people who skateboard as compared with the number of people who jog. Correct

argument only count number of people injured without total number of people skateboarding or jogging

D. It ignores the possibility that other activities cause even more injuries than either skateboarding or jogging. Incorrect

other activities are irrelevant

E. It fails to address the issue and instead attacks the character of the legislature. Incorrect

argument is not attack legislature character

Our legislature is considering passing legislation to ban skateboarding on city streets, citing safety concerns. However, a review of public health records reveals that the legislature’s concern is misplaced. Each year, many more people are injured while jogging than are injured while skateboarding. So in fact, skateboarding is safer than jogging.

Which of the following indicates a flaw in the reasoning above?

Ban skateboarding because of safety concerns.
But, more people are injured while jogging.
Conclusion: Skateboarding is safer than jogging.
Identify the flaw.


A. It fails to distinguish professional skateboarders who attempt very dangerous maneuvers from amateurs who are comparatively cautious.
This answer represents a specific subset of people when we want the general whole.

B. It assumes without warrant that no one who skateboards also jogs.
This is distinguishing the difference between skaters and joggers. however, this is completely irrelevant to the identification of a flaw since we want to statistics on individual activities, not a blend.

C. It fails to consider the number of people who skateboard as compared with the number of people who jog.
This is what the argument is lacking! There needs to be some sort of standardization to accurately portray differences in activities when it comes to injuries.

D. It ignores the possibility that other activities cause even more injuries than either skateboarding or jogging.
We only care about skateboarding or jogging. Out.

E. It fails to address the issue and instead attacks the character of the legislature.
What? The argument is an attempt to address the issue.

Conclusion: So in fact, skateboarding is safer than jogging.
Based on this observation: Each year, many more people are injured while jogging than are injured while skateboarding.
- fails to consider lot more people jog than skateboard

Which of the following indicates a flaw in the reasoning above?

A. It fails to distinguish professional skateboarders who attempt very dangerous maneuvers from amateurs who are comparatively cautious.
-Out context

B. It assumes without warrant that no one who skateboards also jogs.
-even if few people skateboards also jogs. - not going to impact the conclusion

C. It fails to consider the number of people who skateboard as compared with the number of people who jog.
-Correct
-Most of the people jog, but very few skateboards, however comparing the number of people who get injured

D. It ignores the possibility that other activities cause even more injuries than either skateboarding or jogging.
-argument is about jogging and skateboarding

E. It fails to address the issue and instead attacks the character of the legislature.
- irrelevant

Conclusion: skateboarding is safer than jogging.
Prethinking: I think the comparison should be in % of people injured out of % of people jogged vs. % of people injured out of % of people used skateboard. Actually, only number comparison between two is flawed.

Which of the following indicates a flaw in the reasoning above?

A. It fails to distinguish professional skateboarders who attempt very dangerous maneuvers from amateurs who are comparatively cautious. -> Incorrect. We have to get flaw as "skateboarding is safer than jogging".

B. It assumes without warrant that no one who skateboards also jogs. -> Incorrect. how are we comparing with people, who jog.

C. It fails to consider the number of people who skateboard as compared with the number of people who jog. -> Yes! No. of people must be compared. Let's keep it.

D. It ignores the possibility that other activities cause even more injuries than either skateboarding or jogging. -> Incorrect. we are talking about the flaw in skateboarding is safer than jogging.

E. It fails to address the issue and instead attacks the character of the legislature. -> Incorrect.

So, I think C.

Official Explanation:

C

Step 1: Identify the Question Type

The word “flaw” in the question stem indicates that this is a Flaw question. We’ll be looking for the argument’s faulty assumption.

Step 2: Untangle the Stimulus

In Flaw questions, just as in Assumption questions, we need to identify the argument’s conclusion and evidence. In this argument, the conclusion is the final sentence: skateboarding is safer than jogging. The evidence is that more people are injured while jogging than while skateboarding.

Step 3: Predict the Answer

In Flaw questions, we expect that the conclusion will not follow logically from the evidence because the author makes an inappropriate assumption. Here, the author incorrectly assumes that a higher number of people injured means a higher percentage of people injured, which is not necessarily the case. Picking Numbers clarifies the issue. Let’s say that 100 people skateboard in a given city, while 10,000 people jog. In that case, if 200 people are injured by jogging while only 10 are injured by skateboarding, jogging would actually be the far safer sport because 2 percent of joggers but 10 percent of skateboarders have sustained injuries. The flaw in the argument, then, is that it fails to provide us with the relative numbers of joggers versus skateboarders.

Step 4: Evaluate the Choices

(C) matches our prediction and is correct. (A) is an irrelevant comparison between professional and amateur skateboarders. (B) is incorrect because the evidence explicitly states that more people are hurt while jogging than while skateboarding. Even if some people do engage in both activities, the conclusion is based on evidence about which activity they were doing when they were injured, so it makes no difference whether there is any overlap between joggers and skateboarders. (D) is incorrect because activities other than jogging and skateboarding are outside the scope of the stimulus. (E) is incorrect because there is no attack on anybody’s character in the argument. Choice (C) is correct.
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