Q23 - An antitheft device involving an electric homing

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Explain/Resolve

Stimulus Breakdown:
New device greatly helps you track down a stolen car. Thieves don't know it's there and it's not yet used by a large % of car owners, but in cities where even a small % of drivers have it, auto thefts are down a ton.

Answer Anticipation:
GIVEN THAT thieves can't detect whether a car has this
AND THAT only a small % of people have it in these cities,
HOW IS IT THAT auto thefts have gone down a ton?

We don't really try to predict answers for these questions, but it's possible that
1. Car thefts are down for a completely unrelated reason (that just happens to be a factor present in the same cities where a small % have these devices)
2. Thieves are aware that the new device makes them easy to track down, so even though they can't tell if a car HAS the device, they also can't tell that it DOESN'T have the device, so the thieves may be playing it safe and just not stealing cars in any city where there's a chance they'd be stealing a car with this homing device.

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This is talking about behavior AFTER a car has been stolen. We're trying to explain behavior BEFORE a car has been stolen: specifically, how come cars aren't being stolen as much in these cities.

(B) We don't care how these cities compare to other cities. We're just trying to explain how these cities compare to THEMSELVES, before the device vs. after the device.

(C) We don't care about before the invention. We care about presently, with the invention, why are thefts down so much.

(D) This is saying that a lot of cars get stolen from people while they're on a trip to a different city, not in their home city. I don't see how this could explain why car thefts are down in cities where a small % of car owners have the tracking device.

(E) Hmmm, maybe? When I first read this, I thought, "Welp, I've eliminated all of them. Maybe (C) deserves a second look?" But I do like the strength of language in (E): it's a powerful idea. In MOST cities, MOST thefts are committed by A VERY FEW experienced car thieves. They used that term "even the most experience car thief" before. That's part of what makes me want to think this one through more.

Let's say there's only 5 great car thieves in a city, and according to this answer they are responsible for more than 50% of the car thefts there. Since the tracking device cannot be detected by a thief, each of these super thieves would be likely at some point to steal a car that has a tracking device. Since the tracking device GREATLY INCREASES the odds of apprehending these thieves, any of them that steal a car w/ the device stand a pretty good chance of being arrested / jailed. Once you take one of the 5 super thieves off the streets and put them behind bars, you've made a big dent in that city's car thefts, since the majority of thefts are committed by this small handful of people. If we nabbed 2 of 5 or 3 of 5, you can imagine how much that would cause auto thefts to drop.

Takeaway/Pattern: I found this one pretty tough. They were going for a bit of a fake out with their paradox. They get us thinking, "GIVEN THAT the car doesn't advertise its tracking advice WHY are thieves deterred from stealing it?" But auto thefts don't have to be down because thieves are DETERRED from stealing cars. They could be down because the super thieves have been apprehended by our rad new tracking device and now those thieves are stuck behind bars, unable to steal their normal glut of cars.

#officialexplanation

[HughM388]

Question Type:
Explain/Resolve

Stimulus Breakdown:
New device greatly helps you track down a stolen car. Thieves don't know it's there and it's not yet used by a large % of car owners, but in cities where even a small % of drivers have it, auto thefts are down a ton.

Answer Anticipation:
GIVEN THAT thieves can't detect whether a car has this
AND THAT only a small % of people have it in these cities,
HOW IS IT THAT auto thefts have gone down a ton?

We don't really try to predict answers for these questions, but it's possible that
1. Car thefts are down for a completely unrelated reason (that just happens to be a factor present in the same cities where a small % have these devices)
2. Thieves are aware that the new device makes them easy to track down, so even though they can't tell if a car HAS the device, they also can't tell that it DOESN'T have the device, so the thieves may be playing it safe and just not stealing cars in any city where there's a chance they'd be stealing a car with this homing device.

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This is talking about behavior AFTER a car has been stolen. We're trying to explain behavior BEFORE a car has been stolen: specifically, how come cars aren't being stolen as much in these cities.

(B) We don't care how these cities compare to other cities. We're just trying to explain how these cities compare to THEMSELVES, before the device vs. after the device.

(C) We don't care about before the invention. We care about presently, with the invention, why are thefts down so much.

(D) This is saying that a lot of cars get stolen from people while they're on a trip to a different city, not in their home city. I don't see how this could explain why car thefts are down in cities where a small % of car owners have the tracking device.

(E) Hmmm, maybe? When I first read this, I thought, "Welp, I've eliminated all of them. Maybe (C) deserves a second look?" But I do like the strength of language in (E): it's a powerful idea. In MOST cities, MOST thefts are committed by A VERY FEW experienced car thieves. They used that term "even the most experience car thief" before. That's part of what makes me want to think this one through more.

Let's say there's only 5 great car thieves in a city, and according to this answer they are responsible for more than 50% of the car thefts there. Since the tracking device cannot be detected by a thief, each of these super thieves would be likely at some point to steal a car that has a tracking device. Since the tracking device GREATLY INCREASES the odds of apprehending these thieves, any of them that steal a car w/ the device stand a pretty good chance of being arrested / jailed. Once you take one of the 5 super thieves off the streets and put them behind bars, you've made a big dent in that city's car thefts, since the majority of thefts are committed by this small handful of people. If we nabbed 2 of 5 or 3 of 5, you can imagine how much that would cause auto thefts to drop.

Takeaway/Pattern: I found this one pretty tough. They were going for a bit of a fake out with their paradox. They get us thinking, "GIVEN THAT the car doesn't advertise its tracking advice WHY are thieves deterred from stealing it?" But auto thefts don't have to be down because thieves are DETERRED from stealing cars. They could be down because the super thieves have been apprehended by our rad new tracking device and now those thieves are stuck behind bars, unable to steal their normal glut of cars.

#officialexplanation

This question is tricky, because (C) is good competition for (E), and the two are split pretty finely. I think you have to give (C) more consideration than "We don't care about before the invention," because we DO care about before the invention. The fact that thieves weren't apprehended previously plays directly into the scenario created in the stimulus whereby the device can help apprehend "even the most experienced" thieves. If those thieves go largely uncaught, they're free to continue stealing cars, and the number of thefts will remain the same. That phenomenon of thieves going uncaught in (C) is actually implicit in (E), according to which the numbers decline because those few prolific "experienced" thieves are finally apprehended, leading to a dramatic decrease in thefts.

Reading the stimulus I knew the bit about apprehending even the most experienced car thieves stuck out like a sore thumb, and I knew it would somehow feature in the correct answer. I found it to operate in only very slightly differing degrees in both (C) and (E), which is why I found this question tough.

[XiaoranZ794]

I found A difficult to eliminate at first. Since the thieves cannot detect the beacon, they will tend to be less cautious after they steal the car, which will make them more likely to be apprehended.

So I think A, C, and E all relate the decrease of thefts to the theives being caught. But E is the strongest among them, because it explains "dramatically".