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  3. Automobile ownership was rare in Sabresia as recently as 30 years ago, but with continuing growth of personal income there, auto

Automobile ownership was rare in Sabresia as recently as 30 years ago, but with continuing growth of personal income there, auto

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问题 Automobile ownership was rare in Sabresia as recently as 30 years ago, but with continuing growth of personal income there, automobile ownership has become steadily more common. Consequently, there are now far more automobiles on Sabresia’s roads than there were 30 years ago, and the annual number of automobile accidents has increased significantly. Yet the annual number of deaths and injuries resulting from automobile accidents has not increased significantly.
Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain why deaths and injuries resulting from automobile accidents have not increased significantly?
选项 A、Virtually all of the improvements in Sabresia’s roads that were required to accommodate increased traffic were completed more than ten years ago.
B、With more and more people owning cars, the average number of passengers in a car on the road has dropped dramatically.
C、The increases in traffic volume have been most dramatic on Sabresia’s highways, where speeds are well above those of other roads.
D、Because of a vigorous market in used cars, the average age of cars on the road has actually increased throughout the years of steady growth in automobile ownership.
E、Automobile ownership is still much less common in Sabresia than it is in other countries.
答案B
解析 Argument Construction
Situation Many more cars are on Sabresia’s roads than 30 years ago; and there are also many more car accidents. Yet the annual number of deaths and injuries resulting from car accidents has not increased much, which is quite puzzling.
Reasoning What factor could help explain the puzzling fact that the increase in car accidents was not reflected in a similar increase in deaths and injuries from car accidents? One (but perhaps unlikely) possibility is that a significantly greater proportion of the recent annual number of car accidents consisted of merely minor accidents, unlike 30 years ago. Another possibility is that cars are currently much better engineered for driver and passenger safety than 30 years ago. Yet a third possibility is that the total number of people traveling by car—passengers and drivers—has not increased significantly despite the large increase in the number of cars. This would mean that the average occupancy of a car has greatly decreased; so, even though the number of car accidents has significantly increased, the average number of people per car involved in an accident would have decreased significantly. On average, this would mean significantly fewer deaths and injuries per accident.
A This throws little light on the central puzzle: why the current number of car accidents is significantly higher than 30 years ago, while the number of deaths and injuries in car accidents is not. The fact that there has been a significant increase in car accidents suggests that the roads were not made as safe as they could have been, and this just deepens the puzzle about the lack of a significant increase in deaths and injuries.
B Correct. This implies that the average number of passengers per car accident is significantly less, and this helps explain why the total number of deaths and injuries has not increased significantly.
C This information does not help explain the mismatch between increased accident numbers and relatively stable death-and-injury numbers. High-speed car accidents would likely have caused more fatalities, on average, than other car accidents; so, given that the increase in traffic volume has been greatest on Sabresia’s high-speed roads, one would expect a significant increase in the number of accidents, and consequently in the number of deaths and injuries. But this expectation has not been fulfilled.
D This does not help explain the surprisingly stable death-and-injury numbers in contrast with the
significantly increased number of car accidents. The increase in average age of cars on the road might contribute to the increased number of accidents if older cars are more likely to be dangerously defective than newer ones.
E The central puzzle already described involves no comparisons between Sabresia and other countries, so this information is irrelevant to explaining the puzzling discrepancy.
The correct answer is B.
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