Street crime can be averted through regulations mandating th

Dear Karishma
What's wrong with B, it sounds just perfect too!

The argument tells us that daytime visibility is a factor in street crimes but does it tell us that it is the "single most important factor"? No, it doesn't tell us. Perhaps social structure is the most important factor - we don't know.
So we cannot conclude (B)

This is "must be true" question. So we can only use information from the stimulus to infer conclusions. Here only answer E can be properly drawn.

Street crime can be averted through regulations mandating the lighting of streetlights during daytime. As
daytime visibility is worse in nations farther from the equator, so obviously such regulations would be
more successful in averting crime there. Actually, the only nations that have adopted such regulations are
farther from the equator than the continental United States.

Which of the following conclusions could be most properly drawn from the
information given above?

A. Bystanders in the continental United States who were near lit streetlights during the day
would be just as likely to become victims of a crime as would bystanders who were not
near lit streetlights.

B. Inadequate daytime visibility is the single most important factor in street crime in
numerous nations that are located farther from the equator than is the continental United
States.

C. In nations that have daytime streetlight regulations, the percentage of street crime that
happens in the daytime is greater than in the continental United States.

D. Nations that have daytime streetlight regulations probably have fewer incidents of street
crime annually than do occur within the continental United States.

E. Daytime streetlight regulations would probably do less to avert street crime in the
continental United States than they do in the nations that have the regulations.
Pre think step-As continental US is farther from the equator daytime streetlight regulations would be less effective than nations which are farther from the equator

A-This option brings in new info"Bystanders"and this we cannot conclusively infer from the statement hence incorrect
B-It may be true but it goes into extreme and states that "Inadequate daytime visibility is the single most important factor" which is not correct
C-We are not concerned about the percentage of street crime in daytime between continental US and other nations which are farther from the equator
D-We cannot conclusively infer this as no effect of daytime streetlight regulations has been discussed in the argument.This option though is very close to being the correct answer.
E-Similar to our pre think step hence correct.

VeritasPrepKarishma

Hi Karishma, I was wondering could you please explain the reasoning behind option D? I was confused between D and E.

kingyoungin211

(D) Nations that have daytime streetlight regulations probably have fewer incidents of street crime annually than do occur within the continental United States.
The argument does not say whether the crime rate is already high in such nations which do not have such regulations. For all we know, the number of crimes could be lesser than that in the US. The argument only presents a way of averting such crimes

(E) Daytime streetlight regulations would probably do less to avert street crime in the continental United States than they do in the nations that have the regulations.
However, option E says that such regulations could help the nations away from the equator more than they could help the US, which is what is inferred from the argument. Hence, this is the right answer.

Hope I could clear your doubts.

Argument:
Street crime can be averted through regulations mandating streetlights during daytime.
As daytime visibility is worse in nations farther from the equator, regulations would be more successful in averting crime there.
The only nations that have adopted such regulations are farther from the equator than the continental United States

We need to look for a conclusion in the options:

(D) Nations that have daytime streetlight regulations probably have fewer incidents of street crime annually than do occur within the continental United States.

Note that street crimes would be fewer in countries farther from the equator when there are regulations compared with when there are no regulations (in those same c countries). The argument does not compare the level of street crimes numbers in regulation countries vs non-regulation countries. We are comparing pre regulation levels with post regulation levels in the same country.
The argument does compare daytime visibility among countries and hence talks about which countries actually have those regulations.

(E) Daytime streetlight regulations would probably do less to avert street crime in the continental United States than they do in the nations that have the regulations.
Nations that have the regulations are farther from the equator than the continental US. Regulations would be more successful in nations farther from the equator. So regulations would be LESS successful in continental US than those nations which have the regulations (which are farther away).

This is correct.

Extream options are most of the time, wrong answer

Similar question to practice -

https://gmatclub.com/forum/laws-requiri ... l#p2609913

To my eye, this question looks like an imitation of the previously mentioned question that begins, "Laws requiring the use of headlights..." (found here) from earlier editions of the OG. The overlap of language within specific answer choices—e.g., just as likely in (A), the single most important factor in (B)—as well as slight alterations—percentage in (C) for proportion in the other question, avert in (E) for prevent in the other question—together suggest a somewhat lazy effort at creating a new question.

I could admittedly be wrong, but I advocate removing the "Official Guide" tag until the source of the question can be verified. (No other site I have found provides any more insight into the source, as in which edition of the guide this question may have appeared in.)

- Andrew

You're definitely right -- it's clear from the standard of the writing that this is not an official question (a verb other than "averted" would be more appropriate, there's a grammatically incorrect "so" in the second sentence, there's the amusingly nonsensical phrase "mandating the lighting of streetlights", etc), but it's just as clear from the careful logical construction that it's modeled very closely after an official problem. From a logical point of view, it's a better question than most prep company questions, but that's only because it has essentially been plagiarized.

The official problem is the one test takers should study, not this one, and the tag should certainly be removed. What is the source?

And just like that, the tag has been removed. (Thank you, Bunuel, or some other unnamed moderator.) I am positive that, were this question to appear in a book for which some amount of money was charged, and if GMAC™ were to catch wind of it, legal proceedings would ensue. I was once put in contact with someone from the GMAC™ legal counsel when I inquired about writing questions on the side, and the word plagiarism was used in reference to just this sort of question.

I agree that, a few silly alterations aside, the logic of the question is sound, unlike what we see in some other so-called official questions. (I came across this doozy of a question the other day in my studies. Sheesh...)

Cheers, Ian.

- Andrew

The source should be a site called CAT 2014 or stuff like that.

The worst-case scenario is a question that looks official for whatever reason and then it is not. It gives the student the false security that you did well.

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