Of every 100 burglar alarms police answer, 99 are false alarms. This situation causes an enormous and dangerous drain on increasingly scarce public resources. Each false alarm wastes an average of 45 minutes of police time. As a result police are consistently taken away from responding to other legitimate calls for service, and a disproportionate share of police service goes to alarm system users, who are mostly businesses and affluent homeowners. However, burglar alarm systems, unlike car alarm systems, are effective in deterring burglaries, so the only acceptable solution is to fine burglar alarm system owners the cost of 45 minutes of police time for each false alarm their systems generate.
The statement that burglar alarm systems, unlike car alarm systems, are effective in deterring burglaries plays which one of the following roles in the argument?
(A) It
justifies placing more restrictions on owners of burglar alarms than on owners of car alarms. - WRONG. "However" can't be used as justifying any context as it is used for an argument that is against(depending on further statements presented) any argument present earlier.
(B) It
provides background information needed to make plausible the claim that the number of burglar alarms police are called on to answer is great enough to be a drain on public resources. - WRONG. More or less like A only as it argues for supporting the claim which the statement does not.
(C) It provides a basis for excluding as unacceptable one obvious alternative to the proposal of fining owners of burglar alarm systems for false alarms. - CORRECT. What it supports is what was presented after that statement. So, fining is justified.
(D) It gives a reason why police might be more
inclined to respond to burglar alarms than to car alarms. - WRONG. Goes offtrack as it loses focus.
(E) It
explains why a disproportionate number of the burglar alarms responded to by police come from alarm systems owned by businesses. - WRONG. Neither it explain nor there is any such thing(disproportionality).
Didn't understand the passage as far as role is concerned but POE helped.
Answer C.
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