Logical Reasoning

PT21 · S3 · Q9 If Eva responded to Luis by saying

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Eva: A “smart highway” system should be installed, one that would monitor areawide traffic patterns and communicate with computers in vehicles or with programmable highway signs to give drivers information about traffic congestion and alternate routes.

Eva's "Smart Highway" Pitch

It would monitor local traffic and communicate with computers in vehicles or computerized highway signs to tell drivers where there's traffic and what alternate route to take.

Louis's Challenge

How is this better than the current situation, where a traffic report on the radio tells drivers where there's traffic and what alternate routes to take?

Eva's Response (per question stem)

The one-minute radio reports are too short to convey all the info I'm talking about.

Evaluate

We need to think about how Louis can respond to this in order to still convey the same feeling of,

Clearly, Eva is Assuming a Difference when it comes to her "smart highway". If she thinks it's meaningfully better, and she thinks one of the limitations of the radio-report system is that the 1-minute traffic report is too short to convey all the info, then she must be assuming that a smart highway would be able to convey more than 1-minute's worth of radio info.

You definitely couldn't convey more than 1-minute's worth of radio content on a highway sign. If someone is driving past a highway sign at highway speeds, they have time to read about 8 words or fewer. And if the "smart highway" sent more than 1-minute's worth of info to your in-car computer, how would you read it? You're driving a car!

Goal

We mainly are just shopping for an answer that makes it sound like the smart highway would do no better than the radio traffic reports, specifically in terms of their ability to convey more info than you can usually convey during a 1 minute radio traffic report.

9.

If Eva responded to Luis by saying that the current one-minute radio reports are too short to give a sufficient description of overall patterns of traffic congestion, which one of the following, if true, would most strengthen Luis’s challenge?

  1. Bad weather, which radio stations

    No Impact

    This doesn't have anything to do with whether a smart highway can do any better at conveying more than 1-minute's worth of information about patterns of traffic congestion. This answer basically just says, "Rain can cause traffic to slow down".

    20% picked this

  2. Correct

    It would be less costly

    Why this is right

    This is kind of a weird rebuttal from Louis, because it's not saying the status quo of radio traffic reports is better than smart highways would be, but it's saying that "a smart highway" is not a better way to deliver this traffic information than "traffic reports on the radio" are, because we could tweak radio traffic reports to accomplish the thing that Eva cares about. We could deliver all this traffic awareness content that Eva desires for less money if we just made a dedicated radio station (like The Weather Channel on cable TV).

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

    71% picked this

  3. Radio reports can take note

    Opposite

    Since this is pointing out a way in which the smart highway would be superior to traffic reports on the radio, it's the opposite of what we want.

    8% picked this

  4. The proposed traffic monitoring would

    No Impact

    If the smart highway did reduce the privacy of others, that would be a bad thing that would help Louis argue that delivering traffic updates via radio is superior. By ruling out that idea, we might be marginally strengthening Eva's plan. No matter what, we're not helping Louis argue for the superiority of radio.

    0% picked this

  5. Toll collection booths, which constitute

    Opposite

    Since this is pointing out a way in which the smart highway would be beneficial to traffic flow, it's the opposite of what we want. (We want to help Louis defend the idea that we don't need a smart highway system; delivering traffic reports on the radio is at least as good)

    1% picked this

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