Critical Reasoning

i would go with B, because

A---> out of scope
C---> uses more likely but doesn't give clarity about the fatalities whether high or low
D---> supports instead of weakening
E---> out of scope

one reason for choosing B was also this that the aircraft is still new i.e 2 years old so much hasn't been known about its safety..........whats the OA?????????

IMO -B.

Opinion: NTSB report, fatal causes/crash landing == low; Prove this as false

A) AZ121 is compared with other class carriers.
B) Crash landing/year is not the ratio we are looking... we consider per 1 year.
C) Comparing recreational carriers with other carries is wrong
D) rate of fatal cause/crash >5 , other carries fatalcause/crash = 1;
e) Issues reports on monthly basis. Rate does not involve time in stem.

D/E are only better optins and D > E. stats in D does not weaken but directly is killing the truth in the stem.

Broken down:
p: recreational advertiser states: NTSB says AZ121 has lowest fatality / crash of any aircraft in its class
c: AZ121 is safest plane available today

Here is my thought process as I went through this question

my prephrases
-there is only 1 aircraft in the AZ121s class (would not only make it the fewest but also the most)
-the AZ121 (or planes in its class or recreational planes) crashes a lot (in which case fatality/crash * lots of crashes indicates lots of fatalities)

poe
(A) This would actually strengthen the argument by showing that other planes had a higher ratio of fatalities per crash
(B) at first glance this was a contender for me. the weak idea is that younger craft = less data = possibly skewed ratio. however the first part of this says "despite its popularity" indicating that there IS actually some data on the crafts ratio and throws that idea out.
(C) this is almost a verbatim match to one of my prephrases so I'm strongly inclined to pick this
(D) again this does the opposite by saying that the ratio is much much lower than the next plane in its class
(E) this is obviously totally irrelevant to the argument at hand

But why (C)? Think about it in practical terms. Lets say a 747 crashes less than .0000001% of the time, but every time it crashes everyone dies so there are 200 fatalities per crash. Now a recreational craft usually only seats a couple of people, so the maximum fatalities per crash is about 4. However lets say recreational craft crash 10% of the time. Which would you rather fly in?

None of that information is implied from the problem, just giving a practical personalized spin to it (remember to personalize the argument)

yep its C..I fell for B too..
ldoolitt..nice explanation

IMO C

the argument takes a leap from fewest fatalities per crash landing of any aircraft in its class to one of the safest planes available( a big leap of faith)

what if the category itself is highly dangerous compared to other categories.....doesnt' matter how many fatalities happen ...its still gonna be dangerous

Wow, great explanation, ldoolitt!

One thing I'll add - I love CR problems that offers statistics as premises, because almost always the flaw in argument is that the chosen statistic doesn't match the conclusion. If you buy into that, you can very often, as ldoolitt did, go into the answer choices already knowing what you're looking for because you've identified that disconnect between statistic and conclusion.

Here, "lowest fatality-per-crash" ratio does not necessarily mean "safest". To have a truly safe plane you want it to not crash at all! So as soon as I see that the conclusion is "safest plane" but that the statistic is "fatalities-per-crash", I'm already thinking, "well, what if this plane crashes a lot?". And that's directly consistent with C.

Honestly, I feel like most CR problems using stats are just handing you the right answer if you look closely at that gap between statistic and conclusion. But it's a good check for business acumen - how often have you been solicited with promises like "save up to $_________!" (but how much do you have to spend?) or "prices as low as _________" (but if that's the lowest, what am I actually going to pay?). B-schools need people who can recognize that just because it has a number doesn't mean that the number is relevant to what the speaker/author wants you to conclude!