Q23 - Editorial: The gates at most railroad crossings

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Rephrased conclusion: The railroad company is not responsible when someone goes around the gate and gets hit by a train.
Premises: The gates are a clear warning, but some people go around it anyway. Licensed drivers are adults who know better.

Answer Anticipation:
The rephrased conclusion here (thank you again, pivot word!) is pretty strong - the Editorialist believes RR companies are not responsible for these accidents. In order to back that up, we need to know the "rules" for responsbility. Here, the author states that adults should know better because they were given fair warning. The correct answer will connect these two.

Correct answer:
(C)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) This answer choice doesn't create a situation where someone could be ruled to not be responsible for an outcome, so it doesn't bridge the gap.

(B) Degree. "Some measures" doesn't necessarily include the measures here. Also, even if these adults are responsible, someone else could share that responsibility.

(C) Boom. The RR company put up a warning. If adults drive around this "clear warning", they are disregarding it. According to this answer, that makes the adults fully responsible for the accidents, which absolves the RR companies.

(D) Out of scope. The question is of responsibility for the accident. If children are harmed, it could be the responsibility of the adult driving the car instead of the RR company.

(E) If anything, this would be necessary for the argument. Even if there are limits to responsibility, this answer doesn't establish that the RR company reached it in this situation.

Takeaway/Pattern:
When there's a new term in the conclusion of a Sufficient Assumption question (here, responsibility), it will almost certainly show up in the answer. Also, when a conclusion draws a judgment, the argument needs to establish the criteria for that judgment. Here, the conclusion judges someone to lack responsibility, so the criteria for responsibility must be established. Since they weren't in the argument, the correct answer will almost always do so.

#officialexplanation

[jeanh93]

Upon reading the passage, I was able to clarify these points.

Conclusion: Ok, so if it's a mistake to say a company is "partly" responsible, this would mean some other group is fully responsible for those accidents.
Reasoning: Adults are capable and they should know better.
Gap: How does "company has zero responsibility" relate to "adults know better"?

Narrowed down to (A) and (C).

I chose (A) thinking sufficient assumptions should be more general and broad in terms, but realized (A) is not necessarily saying that the drivers who go around the larger warning signs are fully responsible. Maybe there are other reasons these drivers went around the sign. We need a more direct statement that indicates these drivers were aware that they were disregarding the signs and putting themselves in danger.

(C) is right on point by closing the gap between knowing better and full responsibility. If the adults knowingly ignored the warning signs, then the blame for any resulting accidents is fully on those adults, not the railroad company.

[ganbayou]

I was not sure the word "disregarded" in C...Because in the premise, it says the warning "was not large enough to prevent automobile drivers from going around them onto the tracks" so it sounds like the company does have some faults...the words are too small. maybe the drivers did not ignore them, but just did not see it.
In this case can we still say C is the answer???

[mf1626]

Can someone please explain why (B) is incorrect?

[elila]

First 30 seconds I struggled with this question because I didn't look close enough at the question type I was answering. However, once I noticed this was a sufficient question, it was clearer to spot the assumption.

Here is my breakdown:
Argument Premise: A licensed driver is a capable adult who should know better.
Argument Conclusion: Some people claim that the railroad is at fault, but this is a mistake. (a.k.a not at fault)

The assumption we are looking for should tell us something about both the driver and the company, after all it's a sufficient question.
B. Capable adults have a responsibility to take some measures to ensure their own safety. That's nice and all but this only tells us about what adults do. What about in relation to this company? Is that still applicable? If it leaves me asking sufficient questions, I personally move on.

C. When the warnings of the companies are disregarded by capable adults, the adults are fully responsible for any resulting accidents.
For starters, the word "when" immediately attracted me to this answer choice because it indicates a sufficient answer. Then it describes how adults should act in relation to this company specifically.