PrepTest 142

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Weaken

Stimulus Summary:
Observation on time to leave a parking space:
32s when no one is waiting
39s when someone is quietly waiting
51s when someone is honking
Conclusion: These different times are explained by drivers feeling possessive of their parking spaces.

Answer Anticipation:
The stimulus features an observed phenomenon, and when such an observation is featured, the conclusion is often an explanation of it. That pattern holds here, where the conclusion explains the various times it took drivers to leave parking spaces by appealing to drivers feeling possessive of their spaces.

When an argument concludes one explanation for a phenomenon, you should immediately start thinking about alternative explanations. Any plausible alternative explanation will weaken the argument, so we should head into the answer choices looking for another reason that time taken to leave a spot would go up when someone is waiting and even more when someone is honking.

Answer Explanation:
This answer choice explains all three of the observed data points with an alternative explanation than possessiveness—pressure. Someone who sees a person waiting for them would feel more pressure than someone who has no one waiting for them. And if that person is honking, then there's even more pressure. Since this answer raises an alternative explanation that accounts for all data points, it weakens the argument.

Key Takeaway:
When an argument concludes an explanation for a given phenomenon, you can weaken that argument by raising an alternative explanation (or strengthen it by ruling one out). That said, be sure the alternative explanation accounts for all the details of the phenomenon it is meant to explain!

Incorrect. This answer is about entering a parking space, whereas the observed phenomenon is about people leaving a parking space.

Incorrect. This answer appears to provide an alternative explanation. However, it doesn't account for all the data points since it doesn't distinguish between someone patiently waiting and someone waiting while honking—both are waiting nearby. In failing to account for the difference between those two scenarios, this answer fails as an alternative explanation.

Incorrect. Interesting! We didn't think about a sampling flaw, but the psychologists did, essentially, do a study. When you realize that you may have missed a flaw while reading an answer choice, no worries! Head back to the stimulus and check. Here, there is a sampling flaw—the observation was at a shopping mall, but the conclusion is about parking spaces generally. However, the sampling flaw is that the argument assumes those leaving a parking space in a shopping mall parking lot react to waiting/honking similarly to people parking in other locations—and that's not what this answer says. The likelihood someone will be waiting isn't relevant to this argument since it deals with the average time in these scenarios, which doesn't care about how often those scenarios are.

Incorrect. Similar to (C), this answer appears to raise an alternative explanation—anger. However, it only connects the anger to the driver who's honking at the person in the parking space—it doesn't connect anger to the person quietly waiting for the space. This answer fails to account for the jump from 32 to 39 seconds when someone is waiting patiently for the spot, so it fails as an alternative explanation.