Official Solution:
The Dear One Baby Carrier is the safest and most comfortable baby carrier available today. The hard plastic exterior retains its shape despite minor impacts, protecting baby from the outside, while the thick interior “comfort pad” acts as a shock absorber inside. The interior design has been comfort-tested by thousands of infants, and the exterior handles have been designed with the arms and hands of caring parents in mind. Perhaps best of all, the Dear One Baby Carrier converts easily from an at-large carrier to a car seat, reducing the risk to baby posed by being shifted from one carrier to another.
Which of the following, if true, would most undermine the claim to safety made on behalf of the Dear One Baby Carrier?
A. An infant safety commission announces that most dropping accidents involving infants occur when a parent is the primary caretaker.
B. A survey conducted by a popular magazine reveals that a large number of parents are still not aware of the danger posed to infants by putting their carriers in the front seat.
C. A parents’ group endorses the Dear One Baby Carrier as the most convenient baby carrier to take on vacation.
D. The manufacturer of the bedding material delivers the material in a package, which bears suffocation hazard.
E. Numerous articles written by various renowned safety specialists have pointed out that at-large baby carriers do not safely double as car seats.
Situation: The manufacturer of a brand of baby carrier claims that it is the safest on the market.
Reasoning: Which specific claims are made by the manufacturer, and how could they be undermined? The paragraph claims to protect infants in the following ways:
1. By using suitable construction material, a hard plastic exterior and an interior padding;
2. By reducing the need to transfer the infant from one type of carrier to another (because the at-large carrier can be easily converted to a car seat).
The correct option would highlight a feature of the carrier that is unsafe for the babies carried in connection with one of the above claims.
A. The passage does not deal with accidents involving infants in general - this option is not an unsafe feature for the Dear One Baby Carrier in specific related to one of listed claims.
B. The passage does not compare the relative merits of front- and back-seat placement for the carrier. This option is not an unsafe feature for the Dear One Baby Carrier in specific related to one of the listed claims.
C. This option is irrelevant for the argument - the manufacturer’s claim deals with safety, not convenience.
D. Though this option deals with a safety concern, the concern remains with the manufacturer of the carrier. Because the suffocation hazard is related to the packaging of the bedding material, not the bedding material itself, the hazard is for the manufacturer of the carrier, not the babies carried in the carrier.
E. Correct. This option is an unsafe feature for the Dear One Baby Carrier in specific related to one of the listed claims ( ref. claim no. 2 is the “Reasoning” section above.) Because the carrier does not double (fold) safely as the car seats, it might pose unsafe situations for the babies carried while converting to a car seat, for example, by accidentally folding while the baby is inside.
Answer: E