#26 - Editorialist: Additional restrictions should be placed

[crispycrispr]

Hi, I found the question stem to be misleading. It asks for what weakens "the argument that ..." when the "..." isn't the argument of the stimulus. I'm really not sure how we know which conclusion we're supposed to focus on when there are multiple.

[Adam Tyson]

This argument has one standalone premise, one intermediate conclusion, and one main conclusion, crispycrispr. It is built like this:

Premise: Teen drivers cause a disproportionate share of traffic fatalities (they are 7% of drivers but responsible for 14% of fatalities, the last sentence of the stimulus.)

Intermediate Conclusion: Teen drivers lack basic driving skills. (based on the above premise; the author is arguing that the disproportionate share of fatalities is due to a lack of skill)

Main conclusion: Restrictions should be placed on teen drivers. (based on the claim that they lack basic driving skills)

The stem wants us to focus on that intermediate conclusion rather than the main conclusion. That is an argument within the stimulus and it is fair of the test makers to ask us to focus on that, even though there is another argument that they could have asked us to weaken (that restrictions should be placed on those drivers).

You asked how we are supposed to know which conclusion to focus on, but the answer is right there in the stem: they told us which one to weaken, so that's the one we pay attention to and we don't worry about the other one!

[p.arya]

Would it be a common-sense assumption to group "not wearing seatbelts/shoulder straps" in "basic driving skills"?

I interpreted "basic driving skills" to mean the basic curriculum of a driving course, which I assume to include lessons of driving safety such as wearing a seatbelt, so I chose B. Is that not a common-sense assumption? If not, I don't understand why.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi p.arya,

No, wearing seat belts would not be considered to fall under basic driving skills. As Jon mentions in his earlier post (Post #3), wearing a seat belt would not be considered part of basic driving skills anymore than wearing a life vest would be considered to fall under basic swimming skills.

Another detail in Answer B worth noting is that both teenage drivers and their passengers are less likely to wear seat belts.

Also, it's worth noting that this question originally appeared on the Oct. 1997 LSAT and may have been written some years before that. Seat belt use wasn't necessarily as prevalent then as it is now. (For example, an article that I just found states that seat belt use in 2021 is 55.9% greater than in 1994. Here's a link in case you're interested.)

https://tpmblegal.com/how-seatbelt-use-has-changed/

It's important to remember that certain practices/views that we take for granted today weren't always the norm, sort of like reading about how doctors used to recommend cigarettes back in the good old days.