QUESTION TEXT: If future improvements to computer simulations of…
QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen
CONCLUSION: Computer simulations improve their info about safety features to be just as good as test crashes —> car manufacturers will use less test crashes
REASONING: Computer simulations are cheaper to design and run than actual test crashes.
ANALYSIS: This may already sound like a good argument. When that happens, ask yourself “how could this be wrong?”.
The stimulus talks about computer simulations being as good at test crashes at giving “information about automobile safety features”. Maybe test crash serve some other purpose. In which case, the computer crashes would be useful but incomplete.
Note: the stimulus is discussing a hypothetical!! I’m putting this in bold, because at least three wrong answers talk about the real world. But the argument is talking about what would happen if something else happens.
Imagine argument that said “If unicorns exist, then that world where they exist would be happier”. Would any of these strengthen the argument?
- It is likely unicorns will exist
- If unicorns soon exist, we will be able to be happier
- Experts believe unicorns will soon become real.
No! I’m talking about an imaginary world, where an imaginary thing exists. We can only strengthen the argument by saying something like “unicorns make people happy”. That tells us something about the world in the hypothetical, whereas the statements above are trying to make the hypothetical a reality.
In the stimulus, the author is not saying that computer simulations will be able to provide reliable info. They’re talking about what would happen, “if” computer simulations were able to provide reliable info. So all the answers concerned with making that hypothetical true are wrong. We care about what happens if the hypothetical happens, and not whether it happens.
___________
- CORRECT. This strongly supports the conclusion. We are talking about a hypothetical where computer simulations are just as good as test crashes at giving information about safety features. If, according to this answer, info about safety features is the only purpose of tests, then there doesn’t seem to be a reason to use real life test crashes.
- The argument is talking about what happens if computer simulations become good. Whether that happens doesn’t matter. When an LSAC argument discusses what happens in a hypothetical situation, the probability of that situation actually occurring is irrelevant.
- This is similar to B. The stimulus was discussing what would happen in a hypothetical situation. Whether the hypothetical happens is irrelevant.
Also, another problem with this argument is that the author wasn’t saying computer simulations were better than crash tests. They only said they would provide “as much” info. So we have no idea if computer simulations would allow safer cars, even in the hypothetical situation where simulations worked well. The advantage of simulations was that they were cheaper, not necessarily better. - This doesn’t matter! As I explained above, the stimulus is about a hypothetical. It doesn’t matter whether the hypothetical comes true. Unlike A, this situation sheds no light on the usefulness of computer testing.
And it’s not even clear how this applies to the situation: does this mean that live test costs are going down, so manufacturers might still do them? Or is it the design that is cheaper, and this cheapness helps lower costs no matter whether we use computer or physical tests? - This is an extremely compelling answer. It definitely supports the idea of using computer tests for the effectiveness of safety features. But, is that the only thing tests are used for? Maybe airplane companies also do physical crash tests in order to test other things. So this doesn’t support the idea that a manufacturer can stop all physical tests.
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