#18 - Travel agent: Although most low-fare airlines have had

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Iam181,

In brief, answer choice D is wrong, because it's incorrect to say that the argument "takes for granted" (i.e. necessarily assumes) what answer choice D says. The argument is limited to whether "major airlines" are safer than "low-fare airlines." Because the argument's scope is limited to that direct comparison, the travel agent is not assuming anything about the "safest" airlines. In fact, we have no way of knowing just from the substance of the argument which airlines the travel agent would consider to be the "safest." Put differently, nothing about the comparison the travel agent is making depends necessarily on a premise about the safest airlines.

Answer choice E is wrong, because, although it's true the argument did not consider the possibility mentioned by the answer, the failure to consider that possibility is not a flaw in (i.e., not a problem for) the argument. Let's say the major airlines are likely to have had one or more accidents, as answer choice E states. Does that weaken the conclusion? Not necessarily, because it's still possible that the "low-fare" airlines have had a worse overall accident record (considering both the number of accidents, and the frequency of flights).

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[ToadKing]

Hi, I am still a bit confused by (C). The stimulus makes a comparative statement that major airlines are "safer". (C) says that major airlines could still be "unsafe". But, couldn't it be true that even though a major airline is "unsafe", it is still comparatively safer than low-fare airlines? I initially chose (C) but switched to (D) during BR because I thought that (C) only made an absolute claim that did not point out a flaw in a conclusion that made a relative claim.

[Adam Tyson]

Don't just focus on the conclusion here, ToadKing. You also need to look at the premises and see how they support, or fail to support, the conclusion.

The premise is that the major airlines have reliable records covering a long period of time, and the conclusion is that they are therefore safer than newer airlines that don't have that long history of record-keeping. But what if that long history of accurate records indicates that the major airline is not actually safe? Then the premise, that they have good records, becomes useless, as it does nothing to support the conclusion that they are safer than anything. Yes, the major airlines could still be safer than the new ones, but the argument no longer gives us a reason to believe that. The argument is flawed not because the conclusion cannot be true, but because the premise does nothing to support the conclusion!