Critical Reasoning

8. When Alicia Green borrowed a neighbor's car without permission, the police merely gave her a warning. However, when Peter Foster did the same thing, he was charged with automobile theft. Peter came to the attention of the police because the car he was driving was hit by a speeding taxi. Alicia was stopped because the car she was driving had defective taillights. It is true that the car Peter took got damaged and the car Alicia took did not, but since it was the taxi that caused the damage this difference was not due to any difference in the blameworthiness of their behavior. Therefore, Alicia should also have been charged with automobile theft.

If all of the claims offered in support of the conclusion are accurate, each of the following could be true EXCEPT:
(A) The interests of justice would have been better served if the police had released Peter Foster with a warning.
(B) Alicia Green had never before driven a car belonging to someone else without first securing the owner's permission.
(C) Peter Foster was hit by the taxi while he was running a red light, whereas Alicia Green drove with extra care to avoid drawing the attention of the police to the car she had taken.
(D) Alicia Green barely missed hitting a pedestrian when she sped through a red light ten minutes before she was stopped by the police for driving a car that had defective taillights.
(E) Peter Foster had been cited for speeding twice in the preceding month, whereas Alicia Green had never been cited for a traffic violation.


OA C
In the explanation it is said that Peter can't at fault as the stimulus tells us. But I think same thing D is doing to Alicia. I really doubt the OA. Experts pls suggest.

Thanks Ceilidh for your valuable comment. I too doubted the question, but, you know, sometimes its really tough to figure out whether the question is not trustworthy or just my mind is playing a trick to justify my indecisiveness. :roll:

~Binit.

Let me just chime in and say that this looks very not-test-like to me. I've never seen a CR problem from an official source using this format.

However, (D) does not contradict anything in the passage. If Alicia was driving *more* recklessly than Peter, then it *supports* the author's claim that the damage to *Peter's* vehicle was "not due to any difference in blameworthiness." If anything, Alicia was the one who 'deserved' to get her car wrecked.