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I put down C for the following reason:

The argument is saying that:
self selectivity has caused the #of injuries per vehicle of minivans to be so low

However .... there is an alternate cause. Perhaps the # of injuries per vehicle is so low simply because .... minivans generally have less passengers!

But answer choice C eliminates this alternate cause by stating that minivans carry MORE passengers than other vehicles.

This strengthens the argument by eliminating an alternate explanation.

This was a MAIN concept in powerscore - when dealing with causality, eliminate alternate causes
So how can this be wrong?

Just checked my test booklets; sorry, wrong question .

The reason why the answer was E is because it supports the conclusion the most. E states that minivans have safety problems, such as inferior brakes. The conclusion is trying to show that it is not due to greater safety features of minivans, but rather the people who buy them. This is not a numbers/percentage based problem really.

Conclusion: "Thus, the reason minivans have such a good safety record is probably not that they are inherently safer than other vehicles, but rather that they are driven by primarily by low-risk drivers."

Answer: "Minivans generally have worse braking and emergency handling capabilities than other vehicles of similar size."

The answer supports the conclusion the most by reaffirming what the author said regarding minivan safety. All the other answers weaken or are irrelevant to strengthening the conclusion.

Remember that in this problem you were trying to justify the argument. His argument was not that minivans have fewer injuries per vehicle (that was stated as a fact), it was that minivan drivers are safer drivers.

Answer choice E justifies this argument because if vans have defects that make them less safe than similarly sized vehicles and yet they have less injuries, it follows that the drivers are probably safer.

Answer choice C is wrong because it mentions "most" other vehicles and does not say "similarly sized" vehicles. If it said something like "vans always have more passengers than all other vehicles" it might be right. By saying most, it leaves the possibility that there could be some vehicles out there that tend to have more passengers than vans, which would weaken and not justify the argument.

EDIT: Whoops, Ohio was right, this was a strengthen question (was going off memory).

It is actually a strengthen question, so the answer does not have to make the conclusion necessarily follow. Strengthen questions can strengthen a conclusion any where from 1%-100%. Justify have to make the conclusion iron-clad (necessarily follows given the credited answer choice).

Ohiobumpkin wrote:The reason why the answer was E is because it supports the conclusion the most. E states that minivans have safety problems, such as inferior brakes. The conclusion is trying to show that it is not due to greater safety features of minivans, but rather the people who buy them. This is not a numbers/percentage based problem really.

Conclusion: "Thus, the reason minivans have such a good safety record is probably not that they are inherently safer than other vehicles, but rather that they are driven by primarily by low-risk drivers."

Answer: "Minivans generally have worse braking and emergency handling capabilities than other vehicles of similar size."

The answer supports the conclusion the most by reaffirming what the author said regarding minivan safety. All the other answers weaken or are irrelevant to strengthening the conclusion.

So the conclusion is basically saying .... The reason for X is not Y, but Z. Isn't that the same as saying "Y didn't cause X, Z did"?
If it is, then the conclusion is not merely stating a fact (that Y is not true). The conclusion is showing causation. The conclusion is stating that Z caused X.
So, wouldn't showing that W did not cause X strengthen the conclusion, because it is eliminating an alternate cause?

If the conclusion simply said "Y didn't cause X" THEN simply showing support against Y would strengthen it for sure.
But in this case, the author isn't JUST saying "Y didn't cause X", the author is also saying "Z caused X".

Betharl wrote:Remember that in this problem you were trying to justify the argument. His argument was not that minivans have fewer injuries per vehicle (that was stated as a fact), it was that minivan drivers are safer drivers.

Answer choice E justifies this argument because if vans have defects that make them less safe than similarly sized vehicles and yet they have less injuries, it follows that the drivers are probably safer.

Answer choice C is wrong because it mentions "most" other vehicles and does not say "similarly sized" vehicles. If it said something like "vans always have more passengers than all other vehicles" it might be right. By saying most, it leaves the possibility that there could be some vehicles out there that tend to have more passengers than vans, which would weaken and not justify the argument.

EDIT: Whoops, Ohio was right, this was a strengthen question (was going off memory).

I see what you are saying about how answer choice C is wrong because it uses the word "most". You're right, there is still a possibility that there are some vehicles out there that have more passengers than vans.

However I still don't think E justifies the argument because even if vans have defects that makes them dangerous, that doesn't imply that the drivers are safer. Maybe the drivers are just as unsafe ... but they have a lower injury/vehicle ratio because all vans only have one passenger, but all other large vehicles have 4.

Also the mere fact that they are not using the statistics for the amount of accidents, they are strictly using statistics for injuries PER vehicle shows that the amount of passengers has a HUGE impact on these statistics. So I thought passengers per vehicle is a HUGE OBVIOUS alternate cause that really needs to be addressed.