PrepTest 148

Incorrect. The schedule of young children is out of scope—presumably, they're not allowed to drive in this town!

Incorrect. If the conclusion of the argument were that pushing the school day back should be done, then providing another reason that it would be good would strengthen the argument. However, the conclusion limits itself to establishing a causal relationship between pushing the school day back and car accidents, so other benefits of doing so are out of scope.

Incorrect. If anything, this answer cuts against the argument by raising a possibility that the impact would be muted—pushing the school day back wouldn't affect teenagers who are working instead, and they would presumably be at the same risk of getting into an accident.

Incorrect. First, if anything, this weakens the argument by calling into question how big of a problem tired/morning accidents are. Second, in stating that "[m]any" happened in the evening, this answer leaves open the possibility that the vast majority happened in the morning. Third, even if most accidents happened at night, the total number could still be decreased by reducing the morning accident rate.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen

Stimulus Summary:
Biology Ð Teens are sleepy when they need to wake up before 8am. Sleepiness makes one a worse driver
Situation Ð Granville High pushed their start time to 8:30 and saw a decrease in car accidents involving teens
Conclusion Ð Pushing the school day back can reduce accident rates

Answer Anticipation:
This is a Strengthen question, so we definitely want to be on the lookout for a correlation/causation flaw—the most common flaw in this question type. And we do end up with one—the situation in Granville has a lower accident rate correlated with pushing the school start back, and the argument concludes that the school start change is what lowered that accident rate.

With that in mind, we can look for our regular correlation/causation answers in Strengthen questions:

(1) Eliminate an alternative cause
(2) Show more examples of the cause and effect going together
(3) Show a control group—where the cause was missing and so was the effect
(4) Explain the causality—which is unlikely here, since the stimulus already did this by discussing melatonin

Answer Explanation:
This answer provides one of our common strengthen answer choices in a stimulus with a correlation/causation flaw—in areas that didn't push back their start times (no cause) the accident rate went up (no effect—in fact, things got worse!). By showing that other areas didn't see the same effect, this answer provides evidence against the possibility that something else brought down accident rates throughout the region, thus strengthening this causal relationship.

Key Takeaway:
Knowing these common answer patterns to certain question types is key to freeing up enough time for the tougher questions that don't fit into a pattern. Make sure that you're focused on using these patterns throughout the exam!