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It is logical to conclude that it is more dangerous to drive

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It is logical to conclude that it is more dangerous to drive

by BTGmoderatorAT » Tue Feb 27, 2018 6:50 am
It is logical to conclude that it is more dangerous to drive an automobile than to ride a motorcycle. After all, the National Safety Council estimates that one person in 19000 will die each year as a passenger in an automobile, while only one out of every 73000 will be killed as a motorcyclist.

Which of the following studies would be most useful in assessing the validity of the argument above?

(A) Comparing the NSC's statistics with those of other nations where traffic laws and conditions are similar
(B) Expressing the difference between the probability of deaths among automobile and motorcyclists
(C) Separating the odds of death due to illegal operating vehicles
(D) Comparing death rates per thousand members of each group rather than comparing total number of deaths
(E) Comparing the number of deaths on highways versus that on city roads

OA: D

What's the best approach to determine the answer?
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by ErikaPrepScholar » Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:56 am
The passage tells us that more people on Earth die in automobiles than on motorcycles. It concludes that automobiles are more dangerous.

The issue in this argument is a relatively common one on the GMAT, so we may recognize it right away - there are likely to be more individuals who ride in automobiles than on motorcycles. This means that there are likely to be more people who die in cars as a whole.

For instance, say there are 500 people who rode in cars and 200 people who rode on motorcycles in a given day. If 50% of all people who rode in cars and 100% of all people who rode on motorcycles died, we would say that the motorcycles were more dangerous. However, 250 people would have died in cars, while only 200 people would have died on a motorcycle. So in this example, even though more people died in cars, motorcycles are more dangerous - the proportion of people who died using each vehicle to the number of people who used each vehicle is more important than the total number of deaths for each vehicle.

So we need to compare the ratio of deaths in cars to number of people driving in cars to the ratio of deaths on motorcycles to number of people driving on motorcycles to determine whether or not cars are more dangerous. This leads us straight to answer choice D, which is the correct answer.
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