According to a government official

Answer choices

1. A

   Not a Reasoning Flaw8% picked this

   accepts the reliability of the cited statistics on the authority of an unidentified

   The argument does implicitly accept the cited statistics, but there's nothing flawed with that. They come from a reputable source: a government official involved in overseeing airplane safety. This sort of answer would be objecting to the veracity of a premise, but our job is to object to the conclusion drawn, on the basis of those premises, not to object to the premises themselves.

   8%
2. B

   Not an Objection14% picked this

   ignores the fact that in nearly one-quarter of these accidents following the recommendation would not

   If some scenario carries with it a 75% risk of getting hurt (and thus a 25% chance of not getting hurt), it's perfectly reasonable to warn people to take appropriate action to avoid that scenario. We can't object to someone giving advice about such a scenario by saying, "Relax, dude, there's a 25% chance your advice will be meaningless."

   14%
3. C

   Not a Reasoning Objection3% picked this

   does not indicate the criteria by which an accident is classified

   We're never picking answers that demand specific measurements / specific definitions / specific names. The exact legal definition of a "relatively minor" accident is not our objection. We know that such accidents pose some safety risk, and for the sake of the author's argument, that's all we need to know. Our objection is supposed to be in reaction to the author's somewhat absurd suggestion that hearing a pilot whistle is an indication of a safety risk.

   3%
4. D

   Correct66% picked this

   provides no information about the percentage of all small airplane flights during which the pilot whistles at some

   Why this is right

   If 100% of small airplane flights involve a pilot whistling at some time during that flight, then it's a very unremarkable stat that "in 75% of accident recordings, there was whistling within the fifteen minutes before the accident." We wouldn't think that whistling was foreshadowing anything; we would just think that whistling was present on the recording because it's present on every small airplane flight. In a sense, we'd be providing an Alternate Explanation for why whistling shows up pre-accident on so many of these tapes: "It's not because whistling happens when danger is afoot; it's because pilots of small planes love to whistle and do it all the time." Since over 99% of small airplane flights do not have accidents (I'm assuming), then if small plane pilots are always whistling, then over 99% of the time that passengers hear the pilot whistling, they will not experience any minor or major accident.

   Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   66%
5. E

   Not Needed9% picked this

   fails to specify the percentage of all small airplane flights that involve

   Would it make any difference to this argument if we said that 5% of small airplane flights vs. 25% of them involve minor accidents? No, because either way, the author can say that, "When there IS an accident, over 75% of the time there was whistling right before the accident". So she can still make her crazy argument that hearing whistling shows you're probably in imminent danger of an accident.

   9%