Despite the fact that antilock brakes are designed to make

Question

Despite the fact that antilock brakes are designed to make driving safer, research suggests that people who drive cars equipped with antilock brakes have more accidents than those who drive cars not equipped with antilock brakes.

Each of the following, if true, would help resolve the apparent discrepancy described above EXCEPT:

a) Most cars equipped with antilock brakes are, on average, driven more carelessly than cars not equipped with antilock-brakes.

b) Antilock brakes malfunction more often than regular brakes.

c) Antilock brakes require expensive specialized maintenance to be even as effective as unmaintained regular brakes

d) Most people who drive cars equipped with antilock brakes do not know how to use those brakes properly

e) Antilock brakes were designed for safety in congested urban driving, but accidents of the most serious nature take place on highways.

dalmba · Accepted Answer

Going with E:

Sateni7628 · Answer

Why more number of accidents occur on cars equipped with ABS than those that are not equipped with ABS is the paradox here.

c) Antilock brakes require expensive specialized maintenance to be even as effective as unmaintained regular brakes

Choice C tells when not maintained properly, ABS does not even perform like regular brakes and can often malfunction. Hence explains a cause for the discrepancy.

e) Antilock brakes were designed for safety in congested urban driving, but accidents of the most serious nature take place on highways.

Choice E explains that those accidents on ABS equipped cars are not serious but does not justify why there is a difference in number of accidents between AB equipped cars & regular ones.

Just restarted my GMAT life. KUDOs please

Economist · Answer

Yes E. Agree with the reasoning as above.

Nevernevergiveup · Answer

Despite the fact that antilock brakes are designed to make driving safer, research suggests that people who drive cars equipped with antilock brakes have more accidents than those who drive cars equipped with antilock brakes have more accidents than those who drive cars not equipped with antilock brakes.

Each of the following, if true, would help resolve the apparent discrepancy described above  EXCEPT :

a) Most cars equipped with antilock brakes are, on average, driven more carelessly than cars not equipped with antilock-brakes.

b) Antilock brakes malfunction more often than regular brakes.

c) Antilock brakes require expensive specialized maintenance to be even as effective as unmaintained regular brakes

d) Most people who drive cars equipped with antilock brakes do not know how to use those brakes properly

e) Antilock brakes were designed for safety in congested urban driving, but accidents of the most serious nature take place on highways.

Abhishek009 · Answer

I will mark option (E) as the answer , it compares urban driving to higway accidents and got nothing to do with the discrepancy why antilock brakes designed for making driving safer is unable to do so.

TheNightKing · Answer

gmat1393 , Can you please Edit the question.? I believe it should read as follows: "research suggests that people who drive cars equipped with antilock brakes have more accidents than those drive cars not equipped with antilock brakes." Or may be I got it right accidentally

Just Kidding. Kindly edit. Thank you!

gmat1393 · Answer

TheNightKing

Done! Thank you

Foreheadson · Answer

Generally I dont like lsat questions and this is a perfect example why. C can not explain the fact mentioned in the passage. here u need to think in real world terms, unlike in real gmat question. lets assume that all the citizens are billionares. Now anyone sees that this would clearly out of scope. this choice assumes that some people are poor and can not service their cars. this is not the case with gmat.

Any thiughts?

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Any thiughts?

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agrasan · Answer

Hi  KarishmaB   MartyMurray   DmitryFarber

Can you explain why (E) is correct and (C) is wrong? I have written down my reasonings below:

c) Antilock brakes require expensive specialized maintenance to be even as effective as unmaintained regular brakes  
So what? This doesn't explain as we can't make an unwarranted assumption that people won't be able to afford expensive maintenance, this doesn't resolve the paradox.

e) Antilock brakes were designed for safety in congested urban driving, but accidents of the most serious nature take place on highways.  
This explains why accidents still happen with antilock brakes as they are designed for congested urban driving but people drive them on highways where most serious accidents happen.

Please let me know what's wrong in my thinking, really hard to understand the mistake here.

KarishmaB · Answer

ABS were designed to make driving safer. But cars with ABS have more accidents than those without ABS. We need to find why? Why do cars with ABS have more accidents than regular cars (even though they were supposed to make driving safer) a) Most cars equipped with antilock brakes are, on average, driven more carelessly than cars not equipped with antilock-brakes. This tells us that with a better car, complacency sets in. People drive more carelessly. This could lead to more accidents with ABS. b) Antilock brakes malfunction more often than regular brakes. This could also lead to more accidents with ABS if those brakes malfunction more often. c) Antilock brakes require expensive specialized maintenance to be even as effective as unmaintained regular brakes ABS requires "expensive specialized maintenance". It gives a reason there are more accidents. Perhaps people don't get this maintenance done. This COULD also explain the higher accidents. We don't have to prove that it does explain the higher accident rate. But we know that it COULD explain it if people do not get the expensive maintenance. It makes logical sense. People could find it difficult to get expensive maintenance done. d) Most people who drive cars equipped with antilock brakes do not know how to use those brakes properly Again, a reason why number of accidents could be higher. If they don't know how to use those brakes, they are likely to get into accidents. e) Antilock brakes were designed for safety in congested urban driving, but accidents of the most serious nature take place on highways. This tells us that ABS was designed to be effective in urban driving, not highways. If most serious accidents occur on highways, then ABS would not help reduce those. But it should have still helped reduce urban accidents - the smaller non serious ones. It did not. On the contrary, it led to more accidents. It doesn't explain why. ABS tech may not be effective on highways so it may work like regular brakes on highways. But it should be effective in urban areas and reduce accidents there. It doesn't do that. Hence option (E) does not explain the increase in number of accidents in cars with ABS Answer (E) Discussed resolve paradox here: https://youtu.be/7mckzPg-xjo

KarishmaB · Answer

Explained the two parts above covering your reasoning. Let me know if something is still unclear.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

The trouble with E is that it doesn't explain anything WHY or HOW OFTEN accidents happen. It just addresses the severity of the accidents. Since the discrepancy is about the FREQUENCY of accidents, this information about severity doesn't make any difference.

You're right that C doesn't tell us whether people actually get this maintenance for their cars. But first, remember that we're not looking for certainty. We just need a plausible mechanism for the discrepancy. Second, it's important to note that we already KNOW that people with antilock brakes are getting in more accidents--we're not trying to prove that point. So given that this is already happening, something must be causing it. Maybe not everyone pays for this expensive maintenance.

My second point gets to the idea that discrepancy questions are a bit different from strengthen/weaken questions. Consider this argument: "I got 100% on my biology exam, but my cousin only got 56%. So I am paying more attention in biology class than my cousin is." What if one of the answers said that a pirated copy of the exam was posted online beforehand. Would that weaken my argument? Perhaps a bit--maybe I cheated!--but then again, we don't have any particular reason to suspect that I was aware of the pirated copy, or that I was willing to cheat.

Now consider this: "My cousin pays careful attention in biology class, while I tend to ditch class or spend class time flirting with girls. However, I got 100% on the exam and my cousin got 56%." Now we KNOW there's a discrepancy, so there must be some reason I was able to do well despite my fooling around. Now if we see that there was a cheat copy available, it serves as a great explanation. That's the difference we have in the brakes example, too. SOMETHING is causing the difference, so maybe it's the need for expensive maintenance.

Despite the fact that antilock brakes are designed to make

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