PrepTest 115

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Paradox

Stimulus Summary:
Common belief - Crossing at a corner is safer than jaywalking, especially since drivers are on the lookout for pedestrian there
Unexpected stat - More people die crossing at corners than jaywalking

Answer Anticipation:
As with all Paradox questions, we should start by clearly defining the paradox. Here, it seems as if crossing at the corner should be safer than jaywalking, if for no other reason than drivers are on the lookout for people crossing the street there. However, statistics show that more people are killed crossing at corners than jaywalking.

This definitely seems paradoxical, but there are a pair of concepts related to a common flaw that can help us explain it. When one thing is "safer" than another, it's saying that the percentage of people engaged in it that are injured/killed is lower. However, the supposedly paradoxical stat here is about the number of pedestrians killed. That jump between a percentage and amount is flawed, and we can use it to explain the paradox.

To use a similar situation, more people die from flying each year than from juggling chainsaws. That doesn't make the latter safer!

Any answer highlighting that the number of people crossing at corners is much higher than those jaywalking, thus allowing for corner-crossing to be safer even though more people die from it per year, will resolve the paradox in this stimulus.

Answer Explanation:
This answer provides the information we anticipate. If far more pedestrians are crossing at corners than jaywalking, then a lower percentage of them could be killed while a higher overall number could meet that fate.

Key Takeaway:
Just because you're tackling a Paradox question doesn't mean you can forget about lessons learned for other question types! Common flaws show up in almost all question types across the test, so always be on the lookout for them.

Incorrect. What "[s]ome" people do most likely wouldn't resolve a paradox that's talking about population-wide statistics. Additionally, the level of traffic isn't connected to fatal accidents—it could be that drivers are paying even less attention to jaywalkers when there aren't other cars around.

Incorrect. The stimulus discusses the safety of crossing the street—the laws surrounding it are out of scope, and people's knowledge of those laws are even more out of scope.

Incorrect. Similar to (C), the traffic laws are out of scope since the paradox surrounds the safety of crossing the street in different locations.

Incorrect. There's no indication of how many drivers are "[g]ood drivers", so this answer doesn't provide much information. Additionally, since it brings up a similarity between jaywalkers and corner-crossers, it can't resolve the paradox about the different stats.