Critical Reasoning

OG 10th ed.
"Passengers must exit airplanes swiftly after accidents, since gases released following accidents are toxic to humans and often explode soon after being released. In order to prevent passenger deaths from gas inhalation, safety officials recommend that passengers be provided with smoke hoods that prevent inhalation of the gases."

Which of the following, if true, constitutes the strongest reason not to require implementation of the safety officials' recommendation?

A) Test evacuations showed that putting on the smoke hoods added considerably to the overall time it took passengers to leave the cabin.

B) Some airlines are unwilling to buy the smoke hoods because they consider them to be prohibitively expensive.

C) Although the smoke hoods protect passengers from the toxic gases, they can do nothing to prevent the gases from igniting.

D) Some experienced flyers fail to pay attention to the safety instructions given on every commercial flight before takeoff.

E) In many airplane accidents, passengers who were able to reach emergency exits were overcome by toxic gases before they could exit the airplane.

I narrowed it down between [spoiler]A & C[/spoiler], but eventually chose the wrong one! Thoughts pleaseeeeeeeeeee

bigmonkey31 wrote:OG 10th ed.
"Passengers must exit airplanes swiftly after accidents, since gases released following accidents are toxic to humans and often explode soon after being released. In order to prevent passenger deaths from gas inhalation, safety officials recommend that passengers be provided with smoke hoods that prevent inhalation of the gases."

Which of the following, if true, constitutes the strongest reason not to require implementation of the safety officials' recommendation?

A) Test evacuations showed that putting on the smoke hoods added considerably to the overall time it took passengers to leave the cabin.

B) Some airlines are unwilling to buy the smoke hoods because they consider them to be prohibitively expensive.

C) Although the smoke hoods protect passengers from the toxic gases, they can do nothing to prevent the gases from igniting.

D) Some experienced flyers fail to pay attention to the safety instructions given on every commercial flight before takeoff.

E) In many airplane accidents, passengers who were able to reach emergency exits were overcome by toxic gases before they could exit the airplane.

I narrowed it down between [spoiler]A & C[/spoiler], but eventually chose the wrong one! Thoughts pleaseeeeeeeeeee

IMO A. Since the airplane explodes soon after gas is released, first priority should be given to exit from plane as soon as possible , and option A clearly against it. And smoke hoods carry little importance because airplanes ofter explode soon after gas is being released.

C is rather repeatation of the passage, first part of C ie 'the smoke hoods protect passengers from the toxic gases' is supported by 2nd sentence of the passage and 2nd part ie "they can do nothing to prevent the gases from igniting" is supported by 1st sentence of the passage.

It's A, because it prevents them from 'exiting swiftly' (first sentence)

It's not C because it still achieves one half of their goal. Remember that gases often explode, meaning sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. So while having a smoke hood might not prevent all potential dangers, having one is still better than not having one if given that C is true. This does not meet the criteria of the question stem, which pretty much asks us to find a reason not to have one

Premise 1: Exit swiftly. Toxic + Possibility of explosion.

Conc: To prevent death from gas, recommend a smoke hood.

For them to avoid death, not inhaling toxic gases and exiting swiftly before explosion should be done by passengers.
C saves from toxic gas part and doesn't help on the explosion part. (say neither ignites or extinguishes fire)

A directly attacks Time taken to Exit. Hence even with smoke hoods , passengers might die.

Hence A over C