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Re: A proposed ordinance requires the installation in new homes of sprinkl
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20 Feb 2022, 07:00
Conclusion: residential sprinklers would only marginally decrease property damage caused by residential fires [because a home builder argued that b/c more than 90% of residential fires are extinguished by a household member]
Prethink: Does the percentage of residential fires and amount of property damage correlate with one another? What if the 10% of fires equates to a lot more property damage?
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the home builder’s argument?
(A) Most individuals have no formal training in how to extinguish fires.
We want to weaken the point that sprinklers -> marginal decrease in prop. damage from a residential fire. WHAT they did to learn to extinguish fires is completely irrelevant.
(B) Since new homes are only a tiny percentage of available housing in the city, the new ordinance would be extremely narrow in scope.
Opposite trap – this is a strengthener if anything. If there’s only a tiny percentage of these new houses then there is more reason to believe that the property damage decrease would be marginal.
(C) The installation of smoke detectors in new residences costs significantly less than the installation of sprinklers.
Out of scope – the costs have nothing to do with the immediate argument/conclusion. We want to weaken the point that sprinklers -> marginal decrease in prop. damage from a residential fire
(D) In the city where the ordinance was proposed, the average time required by the fire department to respond to fire was less than the national average.
Out of scope – we’re concerned with sprinklers and their applicability to property damage (by residential fires). It doesn’t matter how (and how quickly) the fire is extinguished by another entity.
(E) The largest proportion of property damage that results from residential fires is caused by fires that start when no household member is present.
Bingo, this shows that the property damage and percentage of residential fires aren’t necessarily correlated. The largest proportion of damage actually comes from the smaller subset of the population that doesn’t have any household member present – the 10%.
Answer: E
75% (01:28) correct
