Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S3 · Q24 Meteorologist: The number of tornadores

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Meteorologist: The number of tornadoes reported annually has more than doubled since the 1950s.

Conclusion

We're probably finding a higher percentage of tornadoes than we used to.

Evidence

The number of reported tornadoes per year has doubled since the 1950s.

There probably has not been an increase in the number of tornadoes.

Our ability to find tornadoes has improved.

Evaluate

Since we're interpreting the cause of a changing statistic, we can use our Curious Fact / Explanation mindset.

Curious Comparison ... why are we reporting twice as many tornadoes per year nowadays, compared to the 1950s?

Author's Explanation ... it's not that there are more tornadoes; it's probably that our improved ability to find tornadoes is resulting is our being able to find a higher percentage of them than we used to.

To Strengthen this argument we would need to either 1. Rule out an Alternate Explanation for the curious fact or 2. Increase the plausibility of the Author's Explanation

Goal

So let's look for an answer ruling out some other reason why there are more reported tornadoes (maybe it's way easier to report them than it used to be ... 5 mins online vs. 30 min phone call)

or for an answer increasing the plausibility that we're reporting more tornadoes because our ability to find them has improved so we're catching a higher percentage of them than before (this explanation assumes that in the 1950s we were failing to report at least half o the tornadoes that occurred)

24.

Which one of the following, if true, provides the most support for the meteorologist’s argument?

The physical damage caused by
No Impact
This is just saying that the relative strength of a tornado is the same. If this answer were more about the aggregate damage of all tornadoes (in a year), it would be a little more useful to us. If there were now more tornadoes occurring, we'd expect more tornado damage than before. So if we were told that there isn't more tornado damage than before, there probably aren't more tornadoes than before. But this is about the average damage per tornado. It doesn't tell us anything about whether overall there's more / less / comparable damage.
16% picked this
The number of tornadoes hitting
Weakens
Our author is maintaining that the number of tornadoes has probably not increased, so a fact that says there are more than twice as many tornadoes hitting urban areas goes against that. This suggests that the real reason why reports of tornadoes have doubled is that there are, in fact, way more tornadoes nowadays.
8% picked this
Correct
The number of large and
Why this is right
We know that twice as many tornadoes per year are reported now vs. in 1950. Let's say for example, 1950 - 100 tornadoes reported per year 2020 - 200 tornadoes reported per year This answer is saying that the number of Large/Medium tornadoes reported has not gone up. Let's pretend it's 90 in both cases. 1950 Now Large/Med 90 90 Small Total 100 200 So, by subtraction, that tells us how many Small tornadoes were detected in each time period. 1950 Now Large/Med 90 90 Small 10 110 Total 100 200 It, of course, doesn't matter what numbers we use (or that we use numbers at all). The point of the answer choice is "All of the increase in reported tornadoes comes from smaller tornadoes". If we're reporting twice as many tornadoes, and the increase is purely due to an uptick in smaller tornadoes, that boosts the plausibility of the author's hypothesis that what has really changed is our improved tornado-finding abilities. With primitive tornado-finding abilities, we would be able to detect Large / Medium pretty easily, but we would struggle to detect the Smaller ones. With improved tornado-finding abilities, we would now be able to detect more Smaller ones. So this is a piece of information that helps corroborate our author's storyline.
Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
53% picked this
The annual number of deaths
Unclear Impact
Number of deaths from tornadoes isn't a perfect indicator of whether there are more / fewer / same number of tornadoes, but in general if we hear that more people die of tornadoes nowadays, we're going to assume that this means that there are either more tornadoes or more severe tornadoes. More severe tornadoes would somewhat strengthen the author's argument, because we will certainly have an easier time finding a higher percentage of tornadoes if they've grown more deadly. But more tornadoes would weaken the argument, because the author is explicitly saying, "I don't think the cause of the uptick in reported tornadoes is just a higher volume of tornadoes". So since we don't know whether increased number or increased severity is causing the uptick in tornado deaths (could also just be that the same number / intensity of tornadoes is now hitting more populated areas), we can't ascertain what effect this fact would have.
1% picked this
The geographic range in which
No Impact
The fact that the Tornado Zone of the country hasn't shifted doesn't really do anything. If it shifted to more populated areas, that could add some plausibility to the author's idea that "the same # of tornadoes are occurring, but we just detect a higher % of them". If it shifted to less populated areas, that could weaken the author's idea that "nowadays, we're just reporting more of the ones that occur". But staying the same doesn't seem to have much effect.
22% picked this

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