An antitheft device involving

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact11% picked this

   Car thieves will tend to be less cautious if they are unaware that a car they have stolen

   This explains why a car thief is likely to get apprehended when they steal a car with this tracking device, but it doesn't help explain why a small % of cars having it could lead to a huge drop in car thefts. In particular, these cars were still stolen! The fact that the thief would get sloppy and get caught doesn't remove the car theft from the police record. We need an answer where some of these apprehensions are somehow deterring lots of future car thefts.

   11%
2. B

   No Impact8% picked this

   Typically, the number of cars stolen in cities where the homing beacons are in use was below average

   It doesn't matter how the cities we're talking about compare to other cities. The fact set we're trying to explain is about these cities NOW vs. these cities PREVIOUSLY. This answer is about "these cities PREVIOUSLY vs. other cities PREVIOUSLY)

   8%
3. C

   No Impact29% picked this

   Before the invention of the homing beacon, automobile thieves who stole cars containing antitheft devices

   This answer would allow us to say that even though only a small % of cars have the device, the % of car thefts that are apprehended has gone up dramatically. If you go from "5 car thefts were apprehended (rarely) to 25 car thefts were apprehended", that's a 400% increase. But the problem is we don't care about the rate of apprehension. We care about the rate of car thefts. This has nothing to do with that. Whether we apprehend the thief or not, the car theft has already occurred. We're looking for a causal story where a small group of people having these tracking devices leads to way fewer cars being stolen in the first place.

   29%
4. D

   Unclear Impact6% picked this

   A large proportion of stolen cars are stolen from people who do not live in the cities

   Are the out-of-towners people who have the tracking device? Do a higher percentage of them than the car owners of the city that they're visiting have the tracking device? If an out-of-towner does have the device, has their car stolen, and uses the tracking device to apprehend the thief, how does that lead to a dramatic drop in car thefts in that city they were visiting?

   6%
5. E

   Correct46% picked this

   In most cities the majority of car thefts are committed by a few very

   Why this is right

   This allows us to solve the paradox of "how could a small number of cars have a big effect on the city's car theft numbers"? In most cities, most thefts are committed by a few very experienced thieves. These thieves ain't used to being apprehended. They steal a car, sell it, steal another. However, once a small % of cars start to have these tracking devices, some of these super thieves are going to unknowingly steal one of these, get apprehended (because remember it doesn't matter how good/experienced you are), get arrested and jailed, and thus they're behind bars, instead of stealing another 100 cars. If there are like 20 thieves responsible for most of the 1000 car thefts each year, then if we snag 10 of them from that small % of cars with the tracking device, we'll put them in jail and prevent the 500 other car thefts they would have done this year had we not busted them and thrown them in the clink.

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

   46%