Multiple choice

Ever since the liquor sale and use laws have been liberalized, enabling easy sales and consumption by the city people, the crime rate in Dalmatian has significantly come down from 24 crimes per thousand per year to 14 crimes per 1000 per year. The city council surmises that this is entirely due to the liberal liquor laws and therefore, plans to do away with other liquor restrictions also, so as to achieve its goal of a crime-free city in the next five years.

Which of the following could be a possible flaw in the reasoning employed above?

  1. Last year, there was a shift in the definition of crime adopted by the city police.

  2. The city council has failed to take into account the crime rate prevailing in the villages falling under it.

  3. The rate of serious crimes prevailing in a city is hardly factored into the overall crime rate.

  4. The city council failed to consider other plausible reasons for the observed decline in the crime rate.

  5. Similar liquor laws in other states have been entirely unsuccessful.

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

The paragraph talks of a negative correlation between liquor consumption and crime rate, which needs to be proved beyond any reasonable doubt to come to a firm conclusion. When several possibilities exist to account for an observed phenomenon, we need to rule out all others before we can zero in on a particular causal factor. Simply because we happened to witness two things simultaneously does not necessarily mean that one is causing the other. Hence choice (4) happens to the best one.

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