Q7 - More pedestrian injuries occur

[smiller]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
The premise of the argument compares crosswalks that have certain safety features with crosswalks that don't, noting that more pedestrian injuries occur at the crosswalks that have the safety features. From this, the argument concludes that the safety features are a waste of money.

Answer Anticipation:
The argument assumes that the safety features don't provide some benefit that justifies their cost, in spite of the difference in pedestrian injuries. A couple of possibilities should always come to mind when an argument makes this type of comparison: perhaps the crosswalks with safety features are used by far more pedestrians, or perhaps the safety features are only added to crosswalks at very dangerous locations. In either case we could still have a significant number of injuries at those crosswalks, but if the safety features weren't in place we might have significantly more!

This argument actually leaves us a lot of room for debate. We have no idea why the person making this argument believes that a greater number of injuries proves that the safety features are a waste of money. He might think that the safety features should make the number of injuries lower. He might insist that there should not be any injuries at all. He could possibly think that the safety features are causing more injuries—there is not any direct evidence for that in the argument, but it's possible. What's important is that the safety features might provide some significant benefit in spite of the injuries, and the argument doesn't take this into account.

Correct Answer:
(A)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This describes one of the issues that we anticipated. If the safety features are installed at intersections because those intersections are the most dangerous, they might be preventing some, but not all injuries, and still be very worthwhile.

(B) We have to be careful with this answer choice. This answer is specifically about safety features "that fail to reduce the number of injuries." Do we know for a fact that the safety features in the stimulus are failing to reduce injuries? As we pointed out above, they could very well be reducing injuries. If they are, then answer choice (B) doesn't apply to the argument at all.

(C) Like choice (B), the flaw described in choice (C) doesn't apply to this specific argument. We don't have to assume that other, less expensive options exist. If the striping and flashing lights aren't effective, they could be a waste of money regardless of whether or not there are better options.

(D) This is out of scope. The premise compares crosswalks with striping and flashing lights to crosswalks that lack these features. Based on that, we have a conclusion that is strictly about the striping and flashing lights. The existence of other safety features is not addressed in the premises, and doesn't impact the conclusion.

(E) A comparison between pedestrian injuries and car occupants' injuries is irrelevant. If the striping and flashing lights somehow reduced injuries to car occupants, that fact might be relevant, but that's not what answer choice (E) states. We don't have any idea how the comparison in this answer is related to the safety features in the crosswalks.

Takeaway/Pattern: When an LSAT argument compares two things, then draws a conclusion based on that argument, there is often a significant piece of information missing from the comparison. Identifying that missing piece can be the key to spotting the flaw in the argument.

#officialexplanation

[icebreaker]

Hello!

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could help me eliminate (B). Thank you!

Here's what I have so far:

The safety features (striping and flashing lights) are a waste of taxpayer money.

Why?

Because more pedestrian injuries occur where those safety features are applied.

---
(A) is correct because it explains why there are more injuries; namely, that the crosswalks are the most dangerous. Therefore, the safety features rightfully go there. (To be honest, I was expecting this answer choice to say something more, such as, the argument fails to consider that should the safety features not be present, even MORE injuries would be present at those crosswalks. Hence, it's not wasting $).

As for (B), is it wrong because the argument never mentioned anything about the features that fail to reduce injuries? But can we assume that the stripes/lights aren't reducing? This still really isn't clicking for me.

(C) relative comparison of cost - out of scope
(D) "other safety features" - out of scope
(E) seriousness of injuries - out of scope

[sumukh09]

Hello!

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could help me eliminate (B). Thank you!

Here's what I have so far:

The safety features (striping and flashing lights) are a waste of taxpayer money.

Why?

Because more pedestrian injuries occur where those safety features are applied.

---
(A) is correct because it explains why there are more injuries; namely, that the crosswalks are the most dangerous. Therefore, the safety features rightfully go there. (To be honest, I was expecting this answer choice to say something more, such as, the argument fails to consider that should the safety features not be present, even MORE injuries would be present at those crosswalks. Hence, it's not wasting $).

As for (B), is it wrong because the argument never mentioned anything about the features that fail to reduce injuries? But can we assume that the stripes/lights aren't reducing? This still really isn't clicking for me.

(C) relative comparison of cost - out of scope
(D) "other safety features" - out of scope
(E) seriousness of injuries - out of scope

My reason for eliminating B was that the argument never does what B is saying. B says the argument is assuming that striping on the roadway and flashing lights have failed to reduce the number of injuries - but this isn't suggested in the argument. All that we know is that there's more injuries that occur at sidewalks not so marked with these safety features; that doesn't imply that the safety features have failed to reduce the number of injuries - they very well could have performed their intended function to reduce the number of injuries; however, when measured in the aggregate, there are still a greater number of injuries that occur at sidewalks that do not have these safety features, which isn't the same thing as saying that they have failed to reduce the number of injuries. B), thus, may or may not be true, however, this isn't the flaw in the argument.

As for your question,

can we assume that the stripes/lights aren't reducing?

No, we can't make this assumption, because they may have reduced the number of injuries occurring, but when compared to the sidewalks that don't have these features, there's still more injuries, in total, occurring.

[maryadkins]

Great discussion and breakdown!

Also, the only thing I'd add to your breakdown is that (C) isn't so much out of scope as it's saying the argument presumes that other tactics will be as effective as the stripes and lights. But the argument is about how the stripes and lights don't work. Even if other features are less expensive, if they're "as effective" as the stripes and lights, the person making this argument would probably find them a waste of time, too!

[ttunden]

I picked A by eliminating the rest of the answer choices. However, like the original poster, I too felt that A should have said more. I had this question circled and had to come back to review it during the test, as well as review it after the test.

So are answer choices such as A okay for flaw questions? It should have said more, such as " fails to consider they crosswalks marked in by both striping and flashing lights are the most dangerous ones and incur a significantly higher percentage of injuries than other areas" something like that. Or maybe it could have said " fails to consider the crosswalks marked by both striping and flashing lights are marked this way because they are the most dangerous ones and have much higher volume than the other crosswalks"

any thoughts?

[christine.defenbaugh]

Interesting question, ttunden!

First, as a general matter, it's important to remember that arguments can be (and often are) flawed in multiple ways. As a result, we might pick up on multiple problems in an argument, and want an answer that addresses them all at once. While that's possible, it's also entirely possible for a correct answer to address only a single flaw, leaving the others unmentioned.

Something related, but slightly different is happening here, I think:

In this question, I think that both you and icebreaker would have liked the answer choice to raise something that would clearly show the conclusion to be false. If without the safety features, there are even more injuries, then clearly these safety features are NOT a waste of money.

This answer falls far short of that. Even if the marked crosswalks are the most dangerous, if the safety features aren't doing anything to reduce the injuries there (still a possibility), then the author is right - waste of money! But flaws might not show that the conclusion is categorically false - it might only show that the conclusion is unsupported.

Take my favorite silly argument:

PREMISE: All boys like sports
CONCLUSION: Andy likes sports

I could characterize the flaw of the argument to be that it fails to consider that Andy is a girl. However, Andy being a girl does not guarantee that the conclusion is false - girl-Andy may well like sports. But it would now be unsupported.

In fact, I could soft-pedal that flaw even more. I could say that the argument fails to consider that there are lots of girls named Andy. Here, we aren't even guaranteeing that our Andy is a girl. However, we have raised the possibility that Andy could be a girl, and that's enough to make that conclusion unsupported.

In the question at hand, raising the issue of different crosswalks having different possible levels of danger does similar damage. If these crosswalks are more dangerous, then it's possible that their injury rates without safety features are so high that even with a reduction, the absolute number of injuries is still higher than at the others. That possibility destroys the argument, and makes the conclusion unsupported.

What do you think?

[asafezrati]

On the first go A was easy to pick, and after all my thinking I would pick it again, but I was wondering about the structure/core the speaker has in mind. Doesn't he wrongly equate the first sentence with "these two fail to reduce injuries?"
If so, B would be a necessary assumption (=flaw).
I think that the idea that something fails to reduce injuries doesn't make it "a waste of money" because it can reduce the severity of the injuries.

[maria487]

On the first go A was easy to pick, and after all my thinking I would pick it again, but I was wondering about the structure/core the speaker has in mind. Doesn't he wrongly equate the first sentence with "these two fail to reduce injuries?"
If so, B would be a necessary assumption (=flaw).
I think that the idea that something fails to reduce injuries doesn't make it "a waste of money" because it can reduce the severity of the injuries.

I actually would not say that he thinks that the marked crosswalks "fail to reduce the number of injuries," per answer choice B.

The core is simply more injuries at marked crosswalks than unmarked crosswalks --> marked features are waste of money. I think what we're given in B is close, but it doesn't characterize the argument correctly. You're right in that the argument differentiates the two type of crosswalks by # of injuries, but this doesn't mean that the safety features of marked crosswalks "fail to reduce" in general; it means that the safety features of marked crosswalks fail to reduce to the level of unmarked crosswalks. One statement is absolute, the other is relative. We have no idea whether the safety features reduce the # of injuries in general; we do know that the marked crosswalks have more injuries than unmarked crosswalks.

IMO, the assumption that the author makes is that these 2 crosswalks are different from one another only in the safety features; so if we want to destroy that assumption, we would insert that the 2 crosswalks are actually different in other ways--1 is more dangerous than the other (per answer choice A).

Not sure if I'm correct, so I'd love feedback if anyone sees any flaws in my reasoning

[contropositive]

I like the explanations provided but I kind of saw this argument differently when I first read it.
I thought there was an implied causation in the argument. It felt like the author is saying the markings are causing the injuries so I thought "well maybe something else is playing a role in the injuries occurring" and so i picked A and moved on. the rest just seemed out of scope

[JoshuaA305]

Is there a specific name to this exact flaw? I have seen this flaw committed numerous times on other exams and would love to put a name on it already.

Thank you!