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Preventing commercial plan crashes

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by newton9 » Tue May 31, 2011 12:59 pm
How do the airlines expect to prevent commercial plane crashes? Studies have shown that pilot error contributes to two-thirds of all such crashes. To address this problem, the airlines have upgraded their training programs by increasing the hours of classroom instruction and emphasizing communication skills in the cockpit. But it is unrealistic to expect such measures to compensate for pilots"Ÿ lack of actual flying time. Therefore, the airlines should rethink their training approach to reducing commercial crashes.
Which one of the following is an assumption upon which the argument depends?
(A) Training programs can eliminate pilot errors.
(B) Commercial pilots routinely undergo additional training throughout their careers.
(C) The number of airline crashes will decrease if pilot training programs focus on increasing actual flying time.
(D) Lack of actual flying time is an important contributor to pilot error in commercial plane crashes.
(E) Communication skills are not important to pilot training programs.
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

by newton9 » Tue May 31, 2011 1:12 pm
P: Pilot error contributes to majority of crashes. Airlines upgraded training programs by increasing hours of class room instruction and comm. skills. These measures cannot compensate for lack of actual flying exp.

C: Airlines should rethink their training approach.

My paraphrase: Measures employed cannot compensate for lack of actual flying time.

Here I am struck between [spoiler]C & D[/spoiler]. I want to make sure my analysis of C & D is accurate.

C: Since no of airline crashes are going to decrease if pilot training programs focus on actual flying times, this is going to strengthen the argument. But, this is not a necessary assumption.

D: Actual flying time is not an important contributor to pilot error --> then the conclusion that airlines should rethink their approach is significantly weakened.

OA is D, but not able to pick D in less than 2 min.
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by galaxian » Tue May 31, 2011 1:24 pm
After line 2 doesn't the problem focuses more on reducing the Pilot-error & not reducing the Crashes (though this would be a wrong statement as indirectly it means the same).So considering that I picked D
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by abhi0697 » Tue May 31, 2011 5:56 pm
C & D are very close. C seems to be more as a conclusion and D to be assumption. I will go with D
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by subhashghosh » Tue May 31, 2011 6:17 pm
C has very strong language, D is relatively balanced, so D.
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by SUHAILK » Tue May 31, 2011 10:24 pm
newton9 wrote:How do the airlines expect to prevent commercial plane crashes? Studies have shown that pilot error contributes to two-thirds of all such crashes. To address this problem, the airlines have upgraded their training programs by increasing the hours of classroom instruction and emphasizing communication skills in the cockpit. But it is unrealistic to expect such measures to compensate for pilots"Ÿ lack of actual flying time. Therefore, the airlines should rethink their training approach to reducing commercial crashes.
Which one of the following is an assumption upon which the argument depends?
(A) Training programs can eliminate pilot errors.(too general)
(B) Commercial pilots routinely undergo additional training throughout their careers.(not related to point being discussed)
(C) The number of airline crashes will decrease if pilot training programs focus on increasing actual flying time.(this is too strong and tone of author does not indicate this)
(D) Lack of actual flying time is an important contributor to pilot error in commercial plane crashes.
(E) Communication skills are not important to pilot training programs. (author focus whats not included in the training program and that is actual flying time and because of that training program might not help)
Main Premise: Resolving the plane crash problem using class instruction will not compensate for pilots"Ÿ lack of actual flying time

Conclusion: Airlines should rethink their training approach

[spoiler]Link between Premise and Conclusion is that author thinks actual flying time is very important for pilot in reducing inflight errors and same can be gained through class room.
[/spoiler]


I my opinion answer should be D
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by cans » Tue May 31, 2011 10:53 pm
IMO D
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by itsmebharat » Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:16 am
IMO D, already discussed many times in the forum.
I am not an Expert, please feel free to suggest if there is an error.
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by lunarpower » Wed Jun 01, 2011 6:56 am
newton9 wrote:P: Pilot error contributes to majority of crashes. Airlines upgraded training programs by increasing hours of class room instruction and comm. skills. These measures cannot compensate for lack of actual flying exp.

C: Airlines should rethink their training approach.

My paraphrase: Measures employed cannot compensate for lack of actual flying time.

Here I am struck between [spoiler]C & D[/spoiler]. I want to make sure my analysis of C & D is accurate.

C: Since no of airline crashes are going to decrease if pilot training programs focus on actual flying times, this is going to strengthen the argument. But, this is not a necessary assumption.

D: Actual flying time is not an important contributor to pilot error --> then the conclusion that airlines should rethink their approach is significantly weakened.

OA is D, but not able to pick D in less than 2 min.
this is a good use of the reversal method for (d).

the problem with (c) is that it implies that increasing the flying hours, all by itself, WILL decrease the number of crashes.
this definitely isn't necessary to the argument (which strongly suggests that a decrease in crashes will come from a combination of extra flying hours + other mentioned factors, such as "classroom instruction" and "emphasizing communication skills in the cockpit").
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by tanviet » Thu Jun 02, 2011 2:17 am
RON, PLEASE, HELP US

is C sufficient assumption? and D is necessary assumption? concept of Sufficient assumption is given in an article in this forum.
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by lunarpower » Thu Jun 02, 2011 6:02 am
duongthang wrote:RON, PLEASE, HELP US

is C sufficient assumption? and D is necessary assumption? concept of Sufficient assumption is given in an article in this forum.
there is no such thing as a "sufficient assumption"; an assumption is defined as a statement that is necessary for the argument to be valid. (whether a statement is sufficient to establish a given conclusion is a separate issue.)
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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Pueden hacerle preguntas a Ron en castellano
Potete chiedere domande a Ron in italiano
On peut poser des questions à Ron en français
Voit esittää kysymyksiä Ron:lle myös suomeksi

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Quand on se sent bien dans un vêtement, tout peut arriver. Un bon vêtement, c'est un passeport pour le bonheur.

Yves Saint-Laurent

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by robosc9 » Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:02 pm
lunarpower wrote:
newton9 wrote:P: Pilot error contributes to majority of crashes. Airlines upgraded training programs by increasing hours of class room instruction and comm. skills. These measures cannot compensate for lack of actual flying exp.

C: Airlines should rethink their training approach.

My paraphrase: Measures employed cannot compensate for lack of actual flying time.

Here I am struck between [spoiler]C & D[/spoiler]. I want to make sure my analysis of C & D is accurate.

C: Since no of airline crashes are going to decrease if pilot training programs focus on actual flying times, this is going to strengthen the argument. But, this is not a necessary assumption.

D: Actual flying time is not an important contributor to pilot error --> then the conclusion that airlines should rethink their approach is significantly weakened.

OA is D, but not able to pick D in less than 2 min.
this is a good use of the reversal method for (d).

the problem with (c) is that it implies that increasing the flying hours, all by itself, WILL decrease the number of crashes.
this definitely isn't necessary to the argument (which strongly suggests that a decrease in crashes will come from a combination of extra flying hours + other mentioned factors, such as "classroom instruction" and "emphasizing communication skills in the cockpit").
Hi Ron,

Thanks for the explanation. I have a small doubt about the application of negation test.

If we negate C, it becomes:
The number of airline crashes will not decrease if pilot training programs focus on increasing actual flying time.

Does this not bring the argument down as well?
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by dhonu121 » Mon Sep 19, 2011 2:04 am
If we use the denial test on both C and D, the argument would fall apart.The denial test is apparently the best approach to assumption problems, but here that does not seem to work.
I am not satisfied as to how D has come to be the right answer.
The conclusion is that the airlines should rethink their training approach to reducing commercial crashes.
Hence C as an assumption makes more sense since the conclusion talks about reducing commercial crashes in particular with respect to the training approach.

D looks more like a conclusion than an assumption.
I am not really sure how to chose between C and D.
Looks like there are two answers to this question.

Kindly help.
If you've liked my post, let me know by pressing the thanks button.
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by navami » Mon Sep 19, 2011 11:34 am
I fell for C.

But C is very very strong.

Thanks Ron for your explanation
This time no looking back!!!
Navami
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by gunjan1208 » Tue Sep 20, 2011 12:47 am
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