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- Wed Mar 30, 2016 6:17 pm
#22641
Question #11: Weaken, CE. The correct answer choice is (D).
The police chief would like to take credit for the falling crime rate in his city, arguing that crime has fallen as a result of his policing strategy:
Policing strategy (cause)
Crime has fallen by 20 percent (effect)
As with all causal arguments, you must critically evaluate the causality described in them. The conclusion, which is easy to spot due to the conclusion indicator “clearly,” is based on a mere coincidence. Just because the policing strategy coincided with the falling crime rate does not automatically prove that the former caused the latter. There may be an alternate cause for the stated effect, or both might be coincidental effects of another cause. We can also weaken the argument by showing counterexamples whereby the cause occurs without the effect, or the effect occurs without the cause.
Answer choice (A): The police chief’s strategy may still be effective, even if his city has some ways to go. After all, the crime rate has fallen by 20 percent during his tenure. The fact that other cities have an even lower crime rate means nothing, as they could have been historically safer cities.
Answer choice (B): As with answer choice (A), we are given reasons to believe that the city’s crime rate could be even lower (it was lower several decades before the chief’s tenure began). This is hardly a gripe. His strategy may still be working, even if the city has some ways to go.
Answer choice (C): The new policing strategy could easily have caused the crime rate to fall sharply, then level off. Just because the rate of decrease varies over time does not mean that the strategy is ineffective.
Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. If the crime rate in the country as a whole fell by 30 percent during the police chief’s tenure, it shows that the effect could occur without the cause. What’s worse, the country experienced an even more pronounced drop in its crime rate, suggesting that the chief’s policing strategy may have been counterproductive. Granted, it is still possible that the strategy actually worked, especially if the chief’s city was unique in some respect (perhaps it had an uncontrollable crime rate that the chief finally brought down). Still, this answer choice clearly undermines the credibility of the explanation presented in the conclusion, making it the correct answer choice to this Weaken question.
Answer choice (E): Precisely how the crime rates vary between different areas of the chief’s city, and how that variation compares to neighboring cities, has absolutely no bearing on the conclusion at hand.
The police chief would like to take credit for the falling crime rate in his city, arguing that crime has fallen as a result of his policing strategy:
Policing strategy (cause)
Crime has fallen by 20 percent (effect)As with all causal arguments, you must critically evaluate the causality described in them. The conclusion, which is easy to spot due to the conclusion indicator “clearly,” is based on a mere coincidence. Just because the policing strategy coincided with the falling crime rate does not automatically prove that the former caused the latter. There may be an alternate cause for the stated effect, or both might be coincidental effects of another cause. We can also weaken the argument by showing counterexamples whereby the cause occurs without the effect, or the effect occurs without the cause.
Answer choice (A): The police chief’s strategy may still be effective, even if his city has some ways to go. After all, the crime rate has fallen by 20 percent during his tenure. The fact that other cities have an even lower crime rate means nothing, as they could have been historically safer cities.
Answer choice (B): As with answer choice (A), we are given reasons to believe that the city’s crime rate could be even lower (it was lower several decades before the chief’s tenure began). This is hardly a gripe. His strategy may still be working, even if the city has some ways to go.
Answer choice (C): The new policing strategy could easily have caused the crime rate to fall sharply, then level off. Just because the rate of decrease varies over time does not mean that the strategy is ineffective.
Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. If the crime rate in the country as a whole fell by 30 percent during the police chief’s tenure, it shows that the effect could occur without the cause. What’s worse, the country experienced an even more pronounced drop in its crime rate, suggesting that the chief’s policing strategy may have been counterproductive. Granted, it is still possible that the strategy actually worked, especially if the chief’s city was unique in some respect (perhaps it had an uncontrollable crime rate that the chief finally brought down). Still, this answer choice clearly undermines the credibility of the explanation presented in the conclusion, making it the correct answer choice to this Weaken question.
Answer choice (E): Precisely how the crime rates vary between different areas of the chief’s city, and how that variation compares to neighboring cities, has absolutely no bearing on the conclusion at hand.
