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Safety consultant: Judged by the number of injuries per licensed vehicle, minivans are the safest vehicles on the road. However, in carefully designed crash tests, minivans show no greater ability to protect their occupants than other vehicles of similar size do. Thus, the reason minivans have such a good safety record is probably not that they are inherently safer than other vehicles, but rather that they are driven primarily by low-risk drivers.
Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the safety consultant’s argument?
(A) When choosing what kind of vehicle to drive, low-risk drivers often select a kind that they know to perform particularly well in crash tests.
(B) Judged by the number of accidents per licensed vehicle, minivans are no safer than most other kinds of vehicles are.
(C) Minivans tend to carry more passengers at any given time than do most other vehicles.
(D) In general, the larger a vehicle is, the greater its ability to protect its occupants.
(E) Minivans generally have worse braking and emergency handling capabilities than other vehicles of similar size.
Source: LSAT
EXPLANATION FROM POWER SCORE
Strengthen—CE. The correct answer choice is (E)
The stimulus begins by describing how minivans have an excellent safety record based on the number of injuries per licensed vehicle. Yet minivans do not protect their occupants any better than other similar vehicles during crashes. The conclusion provides a two-part causal argument to explain minivans’ exceptional safety statistics in the first sentence: minivans’ safety record is
not caused by their inherent safety, but rather by the low-risk disposition of the drivers who own them.
..... ..... .....
Cause ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....
EffectLow-risk drivers (not inherent safety) --> Exceptional safety statistics of minivans (judged by the number of injuries/vechicle)
Our goal is to identify an answer choice that strengthens the causal argument in the conclusion. Any answer choice suggesting that low-risk drivers are
more likely to be the reason why minivans have an excellent safety record would strengthen this conclusion. Note also that the author rejected an alternative cause for the exceptional safety statistics—the inherent safety of minivans. Therefore, any answer choice that makes it
less likely that the minivans’ inherent safety caused their excellent safety record would
also strengthen the argument.
Answer choice (A): This is the Opposite answer. The premises suggest that minivans
do not perform particularly well in crash tests. If true, this answer choice suggests that low-risk drivers are likely to select vehicles
other than minivans. This makes it
less likely that such drivers caused the minivans’ excellent safety record,
weakening the conclusion of the argument.
Answer choice (B): This answer choice indicates that minivans do not outperform other vehicles in the number of accidents per licensed vehicle. However, this does not alter the fact that minivans do outperform other vehicles in the number of injuries per licensed vehicle. The conclusion focuses on explaining why minivans have such low injury statistics. The number of accidents per vehicle has no bearing on the issue of whether low-risk drivers caused the low injury statistics, and might even weaken the conclusion if we assume that such drivers are generally less likely to get into an accident.
Answer choice (C): This answer choice also has no effect on the conclusion. If minivans carry more passengers than most vehicles, then it is even more impressive that minivans have fewer injuries per licensed vehicle. However, this answer choice does not make it more likely that low-risk drivers are the cause of these statistics, nor does it make inherent safety
less likely to be the cause.
Answer choice (D): This answer choice suggests that size may be the reason why there are so few injuries per licensed vehicle. This is an alternate cause to low-risk drivers and therefore
weakens the argument.
Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. A vehicle’s braking and emergency handling capabilities are both safety factors. This answer choice directly attacks the safety of the minivans, making it
less likely that the inherent safety of the minivans is the cause of their impressive safety record. By attacking the alternate cause, this answer choice makes it
more likely that low-risk drivers are the cause of minivans’ excellent safety record.