Logical Reasoning

PT23 · S2 · Q26 Editorialist: Additional restrictions

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Editorialist: Additional restrictions should be placed on driver’s licenses of teenagers because teenagers lack basic driving skills.

Conclusion (should)

Additional restrictions should be placed on driver's licenses of teenager.

Intermediate Conclusion (because)

Teens lack basic driving skills.

Evidence

Even though teen drivers are only 7% of registered drivers, they're responsible for over 14% of fatalities.

Evaluate

The author sees a Curious Fact, an asymmetric comparison: why are teens responsible for a disproportionately high number of traffic fatalities?

She has this Explanation for that curious fact: teens lack basic driving skills, so they get themselves into more/worse accidents than people would normally, so they account for bigger share of fatalities than they should.

We always react to Curious Fact / Explanation moves with the same two questions: 1. can we think of any Alternate Explanation for the curious fact? 2. how plausible is the Author's Explanation?

So to weaken the move from to "teens lack basic driving skills", we'll look for answers that pose Alternate Explanations (they drive old cars that breakdown more / they frequently are stuffed with passengers, so more fatalities per accident) or answer that undermine the Author's Explanation (teens outperform older people in driving tests).

But we also have a move to a Main Conclusion about placing additional restrictions on teens driver's licenses. Here, the author has a Goal (cut down on traffic fatalities caused by teens) and a Plan (add restrictions to their driver's license).

We would fight that by arguing that such a plan will not succeed at its intended goal, because it's not feasible or would backfire or doesn't treat the root of the problem.

Goal

Eliminate four weakeners, whether they are Alternate Explanations for the curious fact, ideas that undermine the Author's Explanation, or ideas that undermine the author's Plan for fixing the perceived problem.

Since this is an EXCEPT question, we'll be trying to find four different answers that Weaken.

26.

Each of the following, if true, weakens the argument that teenagers lack basic driving skills EXCEPT:

  1. Teenagers tend to drive older

    Weakens - Alternate Explanation

    Teens don't get into more fatal accidents because they lack basic driving skills, it's because they tend to drive the family hand-me-down car, which is "less stable" and thus more vulnerable to getting into accidents.

    8% picked this

  2. Teenagers and their passengers are

    Weakens - Alternate Explanation

    Teens don't get into more fatal accidents because they lack basic driving skills, it's because they and their passengers are less likely to wear seat belts. Thus, even if they get into accidents at the same rate as everyone else does, their accidents will result in more fatalities, because being un-buckled makes you more likely to die in an accident.

    11% picked this

  3. Teenagers drive, on average, over

    Weakens - Alternate Explanation

    Teens don't get into more fatal accidents because they lack basic driving skills, it's because they tend to drive twice as much as other drivers. No matter how good a driver you are, the more you drive, the more likely you are to get into an accident. So if teens drive twice as much as other drivers, then they would be twice as likely to get into an accident as other drivers.

    12% picked this

  4. Correct

    Teenagers cause car accidents that

    Why this is right

    This answer has some explanatory power when it comes to teens being responsible for higher than their fair share of fatalities, but it potentially strengthens. Are they causing more-serious accidents because they lack basic driving skills? Maybe. Are they causing more-serious accidents through no fault of their driving (maybe they drive older cars that tend to be heavier and thus cause more force in a collision)? Maybe, but this answer isn't giving us any information about why teens' accidents are more serious in a way that would allow us to say, "It's not that they're bad drivers, it's just that the accidents they get into are more serious." The author would be like, "Right ... they get into more serious accidents because they're bad drivers." This isn't giving us a way to make an excuse for teens' higher fatality rate.

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

    59% picked this

  5. Teenagers are likely to drive

    Weakens - Alternate Explanation

    Teens don't get into more fatal accidents because they lack basic driving skills, it's because they tend to drive with lots of friends in the car (whereas most adults drive alone), so when a teen driver gets into a terrible accident, there might be twice as many people in the car that could be fatally injured.

    10% picked this

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