PrepTest 122

Incorrect. Why the violent crime rate dropped doesn't explain why people's anxieties over violent crime have increased.

Incorrect. The reporting on the increase in anxiety isn't going to resolve the paradox of why that anxiety has increased in the first place. However, reading this, it does suggest an answer—if the media is covering more violent crime, then that might make people think there's more crime than there is and increase their anxiety.

Incorrect. If this were the case, then anxiety should have gone down, as people are now less likely to be victims than they were before. This answer makes the paradox worse.

Incorrect. Why didn't this group shrink, or anxieties decrease, as these areas shrank and violent crime went down, though?

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Paradox

Stimulus Summary:
Statistics show violent crime is down, but people's fears of violent crime are up.

Answer Anticipation:
As with all Paradox questions, we should start by identifying the paradox. Here, if crime is down, you'd expect that people would be less worried about it. Instead, despite the "greatest drop" in violent crime since the stat has been tracked, there's been a "substantial[] increase" in public anxiety over it.

This stimulus uses language that rules out a few potential answers, and identifying them could help us avoid trap answers. First, the argument doesn't shift from a drop in crime to an increase in anxiety over violent crime—both statements deal with violent crime, so there's no shift there. Also, the comparative language could have led to a resolution—if crime had dropped but was still high, then people would be right to be anxious about it. However, the drop in the crime rate was matched by an increase in anxiety, so that resolution is off the table, as well.

What are we left with? There must be some external factor—not the crime rate itself—that's causing the increase in anxiety. Whether it's politicians stoking fear, several high-profile crimes that made people very aware of violent crime, or something else—any answer that raises a reason that people would be more focused on violent crime despite there being less of it will work as an answer here.

Answer Explanation:
This answer highlights that there's a lot more coverage of violent crime. If the media is constantly playing news stories about violent crime, people might believe that there's been a surge despite the total amount going down, thus justifying fears over it.

Key Takeaway:
Unexpected changes usually require other changes to explain them in Paradox questions. If you note that the paradox revolves around something changing, make sure the answer you select explains the context of that change.