Q20 - Of every 100 burglar

[b91302310]

Why the answer choice (C) is better than (D)?
I think (D) may be fine because the burglar alarms is more effective than car alarm, the police have to respond the burglar alarm and can ignore the car alarm. Since to respond the burglar alarm is a must due to its effectiveness, the fine should be imposed to prevent the false alarm in order not to waste the police time.

So, could anyone explain it?

Thanks

[giladedelman]

Thanks for your question!

On "analyze the argument" questions like this one, where we're asked to identify the role that a particular statement plays, it's imperative that we understand the structure of the argument, starting with the conclusion.

Here, the conclusion is that the only acceptable solution to the false-alarm problem is to fine alarm-owners for the police time they waste. This is based on the premise that burglar alarms, unlike car alarms, are effective in deterring burglaries.

Now, the question asks us about the role of the "burglar alarms are effective" sentence. From the essential work we just did, we already know it's a premise, and just as important, we've identified the conclusion it supports.

(C) is correct. The statement is supposed to provide evidence that imposing a fine is the only solution, as opposed to the more obvious solutions of getting rid of burglar alarms or having police stop responding to them. If police started ignoring them, we could expect the deterrent effect to go down, which the author evidently assumes is unacceptable.

(D) is actually out of scope! This argument is about imposing fines as the solution to the false-alarm problem. It's NOT about police being more inclined to respond to burglar alarms than car alarms -- in fact, it's not about car alarms at all! You could excise the reference to car alarms without in any way affecting the argument.

Another way to look at it is that the argument is not about whether police are inclined to respond to burglar alarms; it's more closely about whether they ought to respond.

(A) is out of scope. Nowhere are the two groups compared.

(B) is incorrect. That claim is simply stated as fact.

(E) is out of scope. The argument never actually makes that claim.

Does that clear this one up for you?

[katl]

Can someone explain why A is incorrect? Doesn't fining owners of burglar alarms for false detections constitute an additional restriction?

[sportsfan8491]

(A) is incorrect because it doesn't describe the role that "this particular statement" plays in the argument ("this particular statement" = the one from the question stem, which follows the "however" in the final sentence of the stimulus).

Notice that "this particular statement" justifies placing one restriction on burglar alarm system owners (fine them, as opposed to enforcing a complete ban). It doesn't justify placing multiple/more restrictions on one particular group over another group because, in quoting giladedelman, "nowhere are the two groups compared." More specifically, the two groups aren't compared from a "facing more restrictions" viewpoint, so "this particular statement" can't serve the purpose that answer choice (A) says that it does (the two groups are only compared in terms of "effectiveness in deterring burglaries").

Finally, given that the author appears to be saying that car alarms are for the most part useless, one might even be led to believe the extreme opposite of what answer choice (A) is telling us: if car alarms aren't very effective at deterring burglaries, then they're nothing more than an auditory nuisance, which could justify placing more restrictions on the owners of car alarms over the owners of other burglar alarm systems.

[btwalden]

(C) is correct. The statement is supposed to provide evidence that imposing a fine is the only solution, as opposed to the more obvious solutions of getting rid of burglar alarms or having police stop responding to them. If police started ignoring them, we could expect the deterrent effect to go down, which the author evidently assumes is unacceptable.

I don't get how we make this assumption. The answer choice refers to one specific obvious alternative, and nothing in the text is relevant to this concept.

The sentence is just a continuation of the point from the previous sentence, regarding the benefit....