Critical Reasoning

Driving under the influence is a more severe problem among college students at rural and suburban universities than at urban universities. Social scientists wanted to determine how much of the problem is due to the distance students must drive to obtain alcohol. They looked at police records for incidents involving students at a number of universities, and compared those with the mean distances between student housing and bars and liquor stores. The longer the distances, the more likely students were to be arrested or involved in accidents.

Which of the following, if true, would it be most important to take into account in evaluating the result?
(A) Many college students do not purchase alcohol at bars or liquor stores.
(B) Students at rural, suburban, and urban universities are arrested for driving under the influence more frequently than are non-student members of their communities.
(C) The average enrollment at urban universities is greater than that at rural and suburban universities.
(D) Local sheriff's departments near rural and suburban universities devote more resources to identifying and arresting those driving under the influence than do urban police forces.
(E) The number of bars and liquor stores per square mile is nearly five times as high in urban areas as it is in rural and suburban areas

Interesting. I narrowed it down to A & D, but had a hard time moving from there. IMO A.

OA?

Not sure, is it E?

I go with option A.

Anything which compares rural, suburban and urban factors can be ignored.

OA given is D and i am not convinced....i saw this question on other forum... my answer was E...


D can make sense but one has to think a bit out of scope and according to me this is a must be true question... so the answer has to be implied in the passage itself.

your thoughts?

to evaluate the result: longer distances travelled lead to more arrests (given that the problem of drink-driving is graver in suburban and rural areas than urban areas)

D seems better than all others.

A. doesnt affect conclusion. doesnt bring into picture the difference between the intensity of drink-driving in rural and urban areas

B. student-non student difference is out of scope

C. enrollment has no correlation with drink-driving

E. density of bars in an area has no breaing on the distance one must travel to obtain alcohol

D. an yes answer to this question weakens the conclusion (identifies an alternate reason why more arrests in sub-urbs/rural areas) and a no answer strengthens the conclusion. hence, D

@scoobydooby,

just my two cents -

If the density of the bars is more in urban areas compared with rural areas, then it does evaluate the argument, as it is a matter of concern.

To an extent, D is also a valid evaluation, but not sure of the reason to eliminate E.

scoobydooby wrote:conclusion: more incidents/arrests(drink-driving problems) in rural/suburban universities than in urban universities

E. density of bars in an area has no breaing on the distance one must travel to obtain alcohol

hey, mehravikas

E only talks about the relative number of bars in the rural and urban areas, with that info we cannot evaluate the result that longer distances travelled lead to more arrests/incidents.
a larger density of bars may not imply larger distances travelled.

ej:say the rural area has 1 bar in the university campus and the urban area has 5 bars in the university campus.so distances students must travel to obtain alcohol may/may not be greater with a greater density of bars

I think you are correct.

'D' makes sense now....it evaluates the argument as false.

it should be D....

Intially I was tempted to go for E.
But Density of bars has no corelation with distance.
It could be that many bars can be located in a certain pockets of the locality and that is far way from the colleges be it urban or suburban & rural.

But "Driving under influence" will come in to picture only when it is " monitored" by police.

SO D exactly bring that point to notice.

I like the explanation on E