The city of Littleville wishes to institute a congestion charge, in wh

Question

The city of Littleville wishes to institute a congestion charge, in which cars driving through the most crowded streets of Littleville, in the downtown area, would pay a fee when they did so. Proponents argue that, in these circumstances, most of the drivers in the city would choose to use outlying roads. This reduction in the traffic in downtown Littleville would help reduce the number of car accidents in the area.

The conclusion drawn in the above argument depends on which of the following assumptions?

A. The outlying roads in Littleville would not present a prohibitive inconvenience for most of the drivers in Littleville who normally use the downtown roads.

B. Most of Littleville's outlying roads are equipped only to handle cars and not the kind of commercial trucks that often have to make downtown deliveries.

C. Drivers in Littleville who can afford the congestion charge are less likely to be involved in a car accident than those who cannot.

D. Cars driving through downtown Littleville are at greater risk of being involved in a car accident than those that use outlying roads.

E. Implementing a congestion charge in Littleville would eventually create such traffic on the outlying roads that the number of car accidents would increase.

IanStewart · Accepted Answer

Yes, exactly. There are quite a few issues with the question, but you've pointed out the most important one. In the last sentence alone, it's ambiguous what "the area" refers to -- "downtown Littleville" mentioned earlier in the sentence, or the entire area surrounding Littleville? But (highlighted below) when earlier the question specifically talks about "the downtown area", I think the only reasonable interpretation becomes that "the area" is the "downtown area" the question already talked about. And if we only care about the downtown area, answer D is clearly not an assumption, so it's not the right answer here. It is a right answer if "the area" we're supposed to think about includes the downtown and the outlying roads, but I'd never interpret a question written this way to mean that.

The city of Littleville wishes to institute a congestion charge, in which cars driving through the most crowded streets of Littleville, in  the downtown area , would pay a fee when they did so. Proponents argue that, in these circumstances, most of the drivers in the city would choose to use outlying roads. This reduction in the traffic in downtown Littleville would help reduce the number of car accidents in  the area .

As for answer C, it's so vaguely written, it's essentially meaningless, so it's hard to evaluate. It's not clear how it's even measuring accident likelihood (per mile, per trip, per day?), nor is it clear whether it's describing how likely drivers are to have accidents now, with no congestion charge, when driving downtown, or if it's describing how likely drivers are to have accidents in general, no matter what congestion charge is imposed and no matter what roads they drive on. All of those factors matter, but C doesn't clarify any of them, so I can't even tell how C relates to the argument.

If you assume the question is only about the downtown area, then C really isn't an assumption at all (though not for the reasons in the "official explanation", which aren't at all satisfactory). For the conclusion to follow, all we need to assume is that the congestion charge will reduce the number of cars downtown, and that accidents do not become dramatically more likely for some reason when there is less traffic. Then the conclusion follows, because the conclusion is about the absolute number of accidents, not about accident rate, and if there are fewer cars driving around, there should be fewer accidents (unless accidents become way more likely when there is less traffic). From that point of view, the best answer seems to me to be A, if the question is about the downtown area alone: we need to be sure the congestion charge will actually reduce the amount of downtown traffic. So we're assuming some drivers will actually be able to use roads that aren't downtown.

Bunuel · Answer

Magoosh Official Explanation:

First, identify the conclusion of this argument: reducing traffic downtown will reduce car accidents. The evidence? Cars will be using outlying roads rather than downtown roads. The assumption, in this scenario, has to be a statement that links downtown roads to higher numbers of car accidents. (D) does this by creating an explicit link between the downtown area and the number of car accidents, showing that we have to assume that this danger is linked to the area for the argument to make sense.

The statement in (A) only engages with the feasibility of the plan in terms of the outlying roads, not in terms of the plan’s ultimate goal (the need to focus on the ultimate goal is highlighted in the question’s focus on the argument’s conclusion).

(B) is primarily concerned with distinguishing between two different types of traffic, cars and trucks. This is not the main assumption driving this argument, as it doesn’t discuss car accidents at all.

The separation of drivers by class (C) is not relevant to this argument. Even wealthier people might prefer not to pay the charge, while some poorer people might be forced to pay the charge. We don't have any idea of what percent fall into this category of folks who can afford the charge. Moreover, even if someone wealthy easily can afford the charge, this does not necessarily mean that person will choose the route that involves paying the charge: in the real world, some people go out of their way to avoid the most picayune changes. So we can't determine how relevant this is. Furthermore, the focus on different types of drivers is outside the scope of the argument, which again focuses on downtown traffic and car accidents.

Finally, (E) only concerns car accidents on outlying roads. The car accident part would work for our argument, but this argument depends on a link between car accidents and the downtown area. This is certainly not an assumption, and in fact, it may be a weakener, so (E) should also be eliminated.

Answer = (D)

kungfury42 · Answer

GMATNinja   IanStewart   MartyTargetTestPrep

Can you please help explain why option D is correct here and not option C?

If I understand the stem correctly, we are only concerned with reducing the number of accidents in the downtown area. This is our only goal and we don't really care what happens on the outlying roads.

On the other hand, option C seems to fit correctly as an assumption in this context. Now that we have levied congestion charges on the downtoen roads and expect the number of accidents to go down, we are clearly assuming that the ones who are able to pay these charges and still drive on these downtown roads would be less likely to be involved in accidents and hence help in achieving the goal of reduced number of accidents.

Posted from my mobile device

Vishnu0001 · Answer

I would never choose Option D, as we are not concerned about the comparative risks of being involved in a car accident between downtown roads and outlying roads.

The Conclusion says that whatever the number of car accidents in the area, following the implementation of this policy, that number gets reduced.

Option C says that the riskier group of car drivers has been removed from the downtown area, which is enough to prove that the number of accidents will be reduced. I mean, although not perfect, this is the better option available.

Correct me if I am wrong, and quite often I see Magoosh questions with such flawed logic, so much so that I stopped using their questions in the Forum Quiz.

AryaSwagat · Answer

Isn't option D though indirectly but already stated in the question, When the question terms the congestion charges! How it's an assumption not already stated in the question?

IanStewart · Answer

You are certainly right, though you can say that about every prep company's Verbal questions. The best advice I can give to test takers studying Verbal is to focus exclusively on official questions, which are vastly superior to any other questions you can practice from.

AryakiSekera · Answer

It seems to me that both A and D could be the correct answers with different interpretations of the questions step. Since this question is not official gmac, its okay to get it wrong

The city of Littleville wishes to institute a congestion charge, in wh

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The city of Littleville wishes to institute a congestion charge, in wh

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