Critical Reasoning

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)

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").