#14 - Many people think that the only way to remedy the

[pacer]

Q14

Can you explain why choice D is incorrect?

Since the stimulus is mentioning statistics that major cities with similar number of police officers have different crime levels, doesn't "demonstrate" no relation between number of police officers and crime rate make more sense?

[Ron Gore]

Hi Pacer,

Answer choice (D) is incorrect because the language is too definitive. Just because the evidence indicates that the ratio of police officers to the crime rate is not dispositive does not mean that the number of police officers has no relation to the crime rate. Answer choice (E) properly indicates that there are factors important to the crime rate other than the number of police officers, but does not overstate the concept in the way that answer choice (D) does.

Please let me know if you have further questions.

Ron

[sodomojo]

Isn't the statistic that many cities had similar cop-to-citizen ratios while diverging in crime rates, compatible with the belief that the number of officers is the only influence on crime rate?

If City A has 10 cops and 5 citizens with a crime rate of 20%, while City B has 100 cops (greater number of cops) and 50 citizens with a crime rate of 2% (much lower crime rate) - the cities have similar (same) ratios of police officers to citizens, while also making it possible that the number of police officers actually is the only influence on crime rate.

If the stimulus read, "recent statistics show that many major cities had similar numbers of police officers, yet diverged widely in their crime rates," this would make more sense to me as the language used would then be the same as that used in the answer choices.

What am I missing here?

[Eric Ockert]

Hi sodomojo!

All we really need to focus on here is how the statistic is used in this argument. We really do not need to making any value judgment as to whether the logic is good or bad, or whether this statistic is compatible with another conclusion. We just need to see how that statistic "function(s) in the argument."

Here, the author introduces the argument that increasing the number of police officers is the only way to remedy crime, and then counters (with the use of the word "but") that argument with the statistic. This is enough to show that the statistic is being used to suggest that the number of police officers isn't the only thing that matters. Regardless of what issues may exist in comparing "numbers" of officers to "ratios" of officers to citizens, it is clear that this is how the author is using this statistic in this particular argument.