Critical Reasoning

From 1994 to 2001, violent crime in New York City steadily decreased by over
50%, from a rate of 1,861 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 1994 down to
851 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2001. Criminologists have partially
attributed this drop to proactive policing tactics such as "broken window policing,"
wherein city officials immediately fixed small acts of vandalism and, as
a result, lowered other types of criminal behavior. During this same period, the
rate of violent crime in the United States steadily decreased by 28% (down to
500 violent crimes per 100,000 people).

Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the information
above?
(A) The decrease in the total crime rate in the United States caused the
decrease in New York City's crime rate.
(B) New York City spends more per capita on law enforcement than does
the rest of the United States.
(C) If the rest of the United States were to adopt law enforcement tactics
similar to those of New York City, national violent crime rates would
continue to fall.
(D) Between 1994 and 2001, the violent crime rate in New York City was
consistently higher than the national average.
(E) The violent crime rate in New York City will soon be below the national
average.

[spoiler]Hello Experts,

I have just one question related to this CR. Isn't the correct option that is option D a restatement of the facts mentioned in the passage? If the violent crime rate in NY was over 50% and that in US was 28%, doesn't this information alone make option D the winner?[/spoiler]

Regards,
Amit

Amit,

The correct answer to an inference question is basically a restatement of, or at least a conclusion based on, the facts in the passage.

Often the correct answer will be the most ridiculously simple one.

In other words, in many cases, most of the choices are tempting ideas that seem to be supported by the prompt, but are not, while the correct answer is some simple thing that is obviously supported by the prompt.

For instance, the prompt could be about employment in various industries, and most of the answer choices will be about trends or other interesting, but unsupported, ideas. The right answer could be some simple statement about more women than men joining x industry.

That having been said, what you said is incorrect. The crime rates in New York and the United States respectively were not 50% and 28%. Those figures are the decreases that occurred over the time period. So one actually has to do some thinking to, logically, get to the right answer to this one.

gmat_for_life wrote:From 1994 to 2001, violent crime in New York City steadily decreased by over
50%, from a rate of 1,861 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 1994 down to
851 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2001. Criminologists have partially
attributed this drop to proactive policing tactics such as "broken window policing,"
wherein city officials immediately fixed small acts of vandalism and, as
a result, lowered other types of criminal behavior. During this same period, the
rate of violent crime in the United States steadily decreased by 28% (down to
500 violent crimes per 100,000 people).

Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the information
above?
(A) The decrease in the total crime rate in the United States caused the
decrease in New York City's crime rate.
(B) New York City spends more per capita on law enforcement than does
the rest of the United States.
(C) If the rest of the United States were to adopt law enforcement tactics
similar to those of New York City, national violent crime rates would
continue to fall.
(D) Between 1994 and 2001, the violent crime rate in New York City was
consistently higher than the national average.
(E) The violent crime rate in New York City will soon be below the national
average.

[spoiler]Hello Experts,

I have just one question related to this CR. Isn't the correct option that is option D a restatement of the facts mentioned in the passage? If the violent crime rate in NY was over 50% and that in US was 28%, doesn't this information alone make option D the winner?[/spoiler]

Regards,
Amit

It has to be (d).

(A) is clearly incorrect. There is nothing to suggest a causal relationship between the U.S. crime rate and New York's crime rate; in fact, the passage suggests an alternative cause, namely "broken window policing" as at least a partial cause.

(B) The passage says nothing about law enforcement spending, so clearly this is wrong.

(C) The passage says nothing about the rest of the country adopting New York's policies - it could be that those policies would not work everywhere. This is outside the scope of the passage.

(D) YES! We know the violent crime rate in NY in 2001 was higher than the US rate, and we also know it had dropped more precipitously than the US rate since 1994. This means it must have been even more above the national rate in 1994. Since the drops in both the U.S. rate and the city rate have occurred steadily, it is not possible for the NY rate to have dropped below the U.S. rate at any time over that period. Hence, this must be correct.

(E) The passage does not suggest this at all. Sure if the NY rate continues dropping more than the US rate, at some point it MAY fall below the US rate. But there is nothing in the passage to suggest these trends will continue forever. It's concerned only with the period from 1994 to 2001.