Logical reasoning PrepTest 126 · Section 3 · Question 16

Question prompt

When a threat to Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: C

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Facts

Valid or Flawed

NA

Question Type

Must Be True Questions

Stimulus Summary

Common threats aren’t reported, but unusual instances of it are. Rare threats are always reported. People estimate risk based on how often they hear about it.

Answer Anticipation

The stimulus here features a lot of generalizations, but the last sentence is the most general of them all. There, it explains how people estimate risk - they do so based on how frequently they hear about the risk.
The first two generalizations are limited to discussing news coverage. While they discuss slightly different situations, they do have a common feature - the rarer the risk, the more frequently it’ll be mentioned.
Putting that together with the generalization about how people assess risk, we can infer that people who watch the news and thus have rarer risks come to their attention more often will have a heightened view of the risk posed to them by those threats.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Whether governmental action will Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    The stimulus never mentions governmental action, so this answer is out of scope.
  2. B
    People tend to magnify Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    The stimulus doesn’t discuss whether these threats are particularly dreadful or are uncontrollable, so this answer is out of scope.
  3. C
    Those who get their Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem
    This answer puts together the generalizations from the stimulus. If news reports more frequently cover uncommon threats/risks than common ones, and people base their assessment of risk on how frequently they hear about something, then those who watch the news will have a heightened view of the frequency of these commonly covered rare threats compared to the uncommonly covered common threats.
  4. D
    Reporters tend not to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    The timeline of the threats are out of scope of the argument, as it doesn’t raise that as an issue or consideration.
  5. E
    The resources that are Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Resources spent on different threats aren't’ mentioned in the stimulus and are thus out of scope.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 5%
  2. B 3%
  3. C Credited 90%
  4. D 1%
  5. E -100%

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