#12 - P: Complying with the new safety regulations is

[nusheenaparvizi]

Could someone please explain to me how Q responds to P's position by "extending the basis for assessing the utility of complying with the new regulations" ? Why is answer choice C incorrect too? I didn't agree with the first part of answer choice C mentioning "giving examples" but I thought that the uselessness of all regulations cannot validly be inferred from the particular set as mentioned by P's critique of those initial regulations. Thank you!

[Paul Marsh]

Hi nusheenaparvizi!

P is saying that complying with the regulations is useless, because they would not have prevented the fire. So P is basing the utility of complying with the regulations solely upon whether they would have prevented the fire. Q responds by saying that the safety regulations are not useless, since they will prevent some other accidents. So Q is disputing P's assessment of the utility of complying with the regulations, by extending/expanding the basis of that assessment (according to Q, it's not just based on whether the regulations would've prevented the fire, it's also based upon whether the regulations can prevent other accidents).

(C) is incorrect for a couple reasons. As you mentioned, Q does not give any examples. That alone makes it incorrect. In addition, Q never admits that "one set of regulations" is useless. Instead, Q defends all of the regulations by saying that they can prevent future accidents. The correct answers to Method questions have to accurately describe what's happening in the passage. If there's an element of the answer choice that doesn't describe something in the passage, toss it out!

Hope that helps!