The number of aircraft collisions

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact43% picked this

   The airlines should be required, when buying new planes, to buy only planes with unrestricted

   We don't know how often airlines buy new planes, so it could take a while for this to do anything. But even if we fast forward to the day when all planes have unrestricted access to the emergency exits, how is that better than getting rid of the seats currently blocking the emergency exits? In either case, you have unrestricted access to the exits. So this is a different way to achieve the same outcome of better access to the exits, but it's not combining with the current plan to make it more effective. A better answer should be something we combine with the seat removal plan to get some safety benefit beyond just removing obstacles to the exits.

   43%
2. B

   Correct55% picked this

   The airlines should not be permitted to increase further the number of flights in order to offset the decrease in the number

   Why this is right

   This plays off an important Breadcrumb detail from the paragraph: collisions have been increasing because of the high number of flights. So if airlines were permitted to increase further their number of flights, that could lead to more collisions, which would offset the improvements we got from having fewer fatalities per collision (due to removing the seats). So this is essentially ruling out an unintended consequence of the Plan that would undermine the Goal (making airlines remove seats could lead to them having more flights, which would lead to more collisions).

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

   55%
3. C

   No Impact0% picked this

   Airport authorities should be required to streamline their passenger check-in procedures to accommodate the increased number of passengers

   Requiring airport authorities to streamline check-in procedures addresses the front-end of getting into an airplane. This has nothing to do with helping us believe that more people will be able to escape the airplane in time.

   0%
4. D

   No Impact1% picked this

   Airport authorities should be required to refine security precautions by making them less conspicuous without

   This talks about security precautions, not safety precautions, which is what we care about.

   1%
5. E

   No Impact1% picked this

   The airlines should not be allowed to increase the ticket price for each passenger to offset the decrease in the number

   Restricting airlines from increasing ticket prices to offset the decrease in seating doesn't give us any new reason for thinking that fatalities will be reduced. If anything, raising ticket prices would lead to fewer passengers, which could lead to fewer fatalities. But this is forbidding them from raising prices (this also could indirectly lead to airlines' needing to have more flights to make up for lost revenue, which could lead to more collisions).

   1%