Bunuel wrote:
Police officers in Smith County who receive Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) training spend considerable time in weapons instruction and practice. This time spent developing expertise in the use of guns affects the instincts of Smith County officers, making them too reliant on firearms. In the past year in Smith County, in 12 of the 14 cases in which police officers shot a suspect while attempting to make an arrest, the officer involved had received SWAT training, although only 5 percent of the police force as a whole in the county had received such training.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?
(A) In an adjacent county, all of the cases in which police shot suspects involved officers with SWAT training.
(B) SWAT training stresses the need for surprise, speed, and aggression when approaching suspects.
(C) Only 15 percent of Smith County’s SWAT training course is devoted to firearms lessons.
(D) Among officers involved in the arrest of suspects in Smith County in the past year, the proportion who had received SWAT training was similar to the proportion who had received SWAT training in the police force as a whole.
(E) Some Smith County officers without SWAT training have not been on a firing range in years.
Project CR Butler: Critical Reasoning
For all CR butler Questions Click HereKAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
SWAT training, the author concludes in the second sentence, is making Smith County officers too reliant on firearms. The evidence in the third sentence presents you with many different numbers and figures. However, the important thing to note here is the shift in scope between the conclusion, which is about Smith County police officers in general, and the evidence, which is about the 14 cases that involved shootings during an arrest.
That scope shift signals that you’ve found the right detail to focus on. If the author is using data from arrests to make a point about the effects of SWAT training on the police force as a whole, it will make a difference if, for example, a disproportionate number of officers involved in making arrests have received SWAT training. Since you’re looking for the answer choice that strengthens the argument, you need one that equates officers making arrests to officers at large.
Choice (D) is the correct answer. If (D) is true, then the officers in the 14 cases are representative of officers as a whole, and the argument is strengthened.
Notice that paying Attention to the Right Detail—the one that the question hinges upon—enables you to form a prediction of what the correct answer will contain. Selecting an answer then becomes a straightforward matter of finding the choice that matches your prediction, rather than a time consuming process of debating the pros and cons of each answer choice in turn. Throughout this book, you will learn to distinguish the important from the inconsequential on the GMAT.
In the officail explaination as explained above the following line is mentions about the shift "
in which police officers shot a suspect while attempting to make an arrest, the officer involved had received SWAT training, although only 5 percent of the police force as a whole in the county had received such training.", but as per the line mentioned in the argument, doesnt it mean that the 12 of the 14 cases, is the case in the Smith County.