Quote:
TIM: When a rare tragedy, such as a plane crash, occurs, many people profess a belief that they themselves are more likely to experience such a tragedy and take extraordinary measures to prevent it. This is unfounded, however. Winning a lottery jackpot, an extremely rare event, does not mean you are any more likely to win a second time.
SUSAN: I disagree. The belief is well founded. People who sense danger are more likely to trust their instincts and act in such a way as to prevent the danger from befalling them.
Susan’s attempt to counter Tim’s argument is best characterized as one that
A. makes apparent Tim’s failure to consider the consequences of such a tragedy to its survivors
B. challenges Tim’s assumption that the occurrence of a single event is sufficient to predict future occurrences of that event
C. questions the appropriateness of the analogy drawn by Tim
D. presents an alternate basis for judging the validity of people’s reactions
E. disputes the meaning of the term unfounded
The right answer is
D. This is a
structure based CR question, which means that we need NOT actually care whether the argument is valid or not. All we need to understand is what role Susan's point plays. In this case, she counters Tim by providing an alternative explanation for the cautious behaviour.
Option A - "makes apparent" suggests that Susan has successfully refuted Tim's argument, which is not the case, and also something we don't need to care about. She's merely providing an alternative explanation.
OUTOption B - This is actually the opposite of what Tim has argued. He's actually saying that just because an event happened before it DOESN'T mean that it will happen again. Hence, this gets the structure of the argument grossly wrong.
OUTOption C - Susan doesn't do this. If it were so, she would directly address what he said rather than provide a different line of reasoning.
OUTOption D - "presents an alternate basis" does the job perfectly. It demonstrates that Susan is simply providing a different line of reasoning, which is what she does in the argument. This works fine and is therefore
CORRECT.
Option E - She disputes that the belief itself is unfounded with her alternate explanation, not the meaning of the term .
OUT - Matoo from CrackVerbal
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71% (01:50) correct 
