Explain The Situation Question || Many Small Roads do not...

[FA]

Hello Ron,
I trust you are doing great. Here is a GMAT Prep Question that was discussed in Feb 3, 2011 study hall:

Many small roads do not have painted markings along their edges. Clear edge markings would make it easier for drivers to see upcoming curves and to judge the car's position on the road, particularly when visibility is poor, and would therefore seem to be a useful contribution to road safety. However, after Greatwater County painted edge markings on all its narrow, winding roads, the annual accident rate along those roads actually increased slightly. Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the increase in accident rate?
A. Greatwater County has an unusually high proportion of narrow, winding roads.
B. In bad weather it can be nearly as difficult for drivers to see the road as it is at night.
C. Prior to the painting of the edge markings, Greatwater County's narrow, winding roads already had a somewhat higher accident rate than other Greatwater County roads.
D. Many of the accidents on narrow, winding roads involve a single vehicle veering off the road, rather than the
collision of two vehicles.
E. After the markings were painted on the roads, many drivers who had gone out of their way to avoid driving on those roads at night no longer did so.

Description:
What Happened: Edge markings were painted on the road
Normally this would mean: accident rate should decrease on those roads
What Happened Instead: there were more accidents per year

Correct Option: E
Option - E Description: We assume that more traffic on the road at night could lead to more accidents

Question:
On the 'Explain the Situation/Discrepancy' questions we make real life assumptions about the correct answer choice. Those assumptions should remain within the boundary of the argument "AND" the boundary of the new description in the correct answer choice.
>> Is my understanding correct?
>> If so, then what area of the boundary would be considered appropriate - or how much could we assume about a correct and "if true" answer choice?

Kind Regards
FA

[tim]

Option - E Description: We assume that more traffic on the road at night could lead to more accidents

Think of this not as *assuming* something, but conceding the *fact* that more traffic could lead to more accidents. You don't need to assume anything here, as long as you are sufficiently able to use common sense that you can recognize that more traffic could mean more accidents.

To answer your substantive question directly, if you are given an "if true" scenario, you take it at face value - ALL of it. Call it an assumption or a concession or whatever, but you treat it as a fact.

[RonPurewal]

Option - E Description: We assume that more traffic on the road at night could lead to more accidents

more importantly, the pink part is completely irrelevant. the point is much simpler:
there are more cars on the road, period.
end of story.

so, if the number of accidents per driver remains roughly constant (a reasonable common-sense assumption), then the overall accident rate will increase.

[FA]

Ron,
Thank you for the response. You chose an interesting phrase:

"a reasonable common-sense assumption"

This nicely explains that:

The assumption(s) in a correct choice of 'explain the situation problem' should remain very much inside the immediate boundary of the correct answer choice.

Am I correct?

Regards
FA

[RonPurewal]

when i say "a reasonable common-sense assumption", i mean "a reasonable common-sense assumption".

why try to transform that? especially into something much less straightforward?

[SAHARSHB917]

The argument said that the accident rate increased slightly after the changes. Accident rate is defined in percentage terms like 5%, 10% etc.

If we look at E, it says that many drivers started using the road. This means that the number of cars increased. Thus, it will mean number of accident increased. Let's say before it was 10/100, but now it is 100/1000. But both of these are 10%.

I am confused.. Increase in number of car can lead to increase in number of accidents but not accident rate.

It would be great if someone can clarify this. .

Thanks a lot.

[RonPurewal]

The argument said that the accident rate increased slightly after the changes. Accident rate is defined in percentage terms like 5%, 10% etc.

^^ this is not a reasonable statistic, because it isn't ... a thing you could actually calculate!

if this is what you think "accident rate" means, then you couldn't compute an "accident rate" without knowing the total number of cars that had driven that part of the road.
...that's definitely not something we would actually know. (if these are tiny back roads where the government can't be bothered to even paint stripes, then obviously no one is going to install equipment to count the total number of cars that pass by.)

so, the only REASONABLE interpretation—using actually available statistics—is that "accident rate" means total accidents per day, or per week, or per year.

[RonPurewal]

also, you can't argue against an answer without arguing FOR a DIFFERENT answer.

...if you didn't like choice E, which answer choice DID you like INSTEAD?

[SAHARSHB917]

also, you can't argue against an answer without arguing FOR a DIFFERENT answer.

...if you didn't like choice E, which answer choice DID you like INSTEAD?

Yes, you are right. That E makes a little sense over other options making no sense. But, I have seen many GMAT and LSAT questions of rate, and this choice of equating numbers to rate is almost always wrong as rate is different than actual numbers. So in testing conditions, I had a feeling nothing is making sense because I thought this is definitely wrong because we can't say for sure. Even your explanation is not making things clear to me because you have assumed a lot of things. When we do many % questions, we do not know the actual number of incidents, and we tend not bring any information from our side. All of these things sound contradictory. I searched google about accident rate, and it is always calculated per 100,000. To be honest, I am getting very confused.

[RonPurewal]

• at the end of the day, you WILL have to bring everyday common sense into your thought process. if you try to solve these problems with "formal logic", you WILL NOT be able to solve them. (that's actually the entire point of the verbal section, as opposed to the quant section -- the problems REQUIRE everyday human intuition / "common sense", along with a certain amount of basic experience of the real world.)

• also... as stated above, you can't argue against an answer choice without arguing for another answer choice.

__

any official problem from GMAC will always be tested on a cross-section of all test takers -- scoring at all levels -- before it actually counts toward your GMAT score.
...so, that means that EVERY problem that actually counts toward your score has passed this kind of test. in other words, when the problem was "crowd-sourced", a large group of people substantially agreed on how to interpret everything in the question.

what this means is that, if you "don't agree with" a GMAC question, it's YOUR thought process that has to change... not the question.

[fionaw752]

Hi Ron, i asked a quetion about this same problem in another thread and was directed by your link to this thread.
Obviously I have found the answer here, choice E says the cars used to go out of road are no longer do so after the curve was painted. It means that there are more cars on the road, leading to a greater probablity to car collisions.
Is this correct?
By the way, it is a holiday season in Ameirca.
Many thanks to you Ron, for all you have done in this whole year and even in these past years. You have helped many many people to beat their targets on GMAT.
I am so grateful for your kindly replies and help.
I hope you enjoy a wonderful season filled with families and traditions that mean the most.
Merry Xmas and happy new year!

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron, i asked a quetion about this same problem in another thread and was directed by your link to this thread.
Obviously I have found the answer here, choice E says the cars used to go out of road are no longer do so after the curve was painted. It means that there are more cars on the road, leading to a greater probablity to car collisions.
Is this correct?

^^ please read the thread. this has already been discussed.

By the way, it is a holiday season in Ameirca.
Many thanks to you Ron, for all you have done in this whole year and even in these past years. You have helped many many people to beat their targets on GMAT.
I am so grateful for your kindly replies and help.
I hope you enjoy a wonderful season filled with families and traditions that mean the most.
Merry Xmas and happy new year!

^^ thank you. same wishes to you.

[SAHARSHB917]

• at the end of the day, you WILL have to bring everyday common sense into your thought process. if you try to solve these problems with "formal logic", you WILL NOT be able to solve them. (that's actually the entire point of the verbal section, as opposed to the quant section -- the problems REQUIRE everyday human intuition / "common sense", along with a certain amount of basic experience of the real world.)

• also... as stated above, you can't argue against an answer choice without arguing for another answer choice.

__

any official problem from GMAC will always be tested on a cross-section of all test takers -- scoring at all levels -- before it actually counts toward your GMAT score.
...so, that means that EVERY problem that actually counts toward your score has passed this kind of test. in other words, when the problem was "crowd-sourced", a large group of people substantially agreed on how to interpret everything in the question.

what this means is that, if you "don't agree with" a GMAC question, it's YOUR thought process that has to change... not the question.

thank you

[hicheme779]

not convinced at all, sometimes they say follow the common sense sometimes common sense does not work.why i need to assumes more cars means more accident.there is another scenario more cars means more total which can decrease the rate (accident over total cars ) increase the total will lead to decrease in rate. E does not explain it is redundant. why my logic is flawed ??

[RonPurewal]

not convinced at all, sometimes they say follow the common sense sometimes common sense does not work.why i need to assumes more cars means more accident.there is another scenario more cars means more total which can decrease the rate (accident over total cars ) increase the total will lead to decrease in rate. E does not explain it is redundant. why my logic is flawed ??

so which option do you think IS correct, and why?