Choose the Appropriate Letter to Indicate the Conclusion That Can

question 2

Multiple Choice

Choose the appropriate letter to indicate the conclusion that can be drawn from each passage. Most Americans think that sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are much safer than sports cars.And it's true that a 5,000-pound SUV like the Chevrolet TrailBlazer is better at what the automotive industry calls "passive safety"; in other words, in a head-on collision with a car, a vehicle like a Ford Explorer is not going to be the one that's crushed.However, many cars are much better than SUVs at what the automotive industry calls "active safety." Midsize cars like the Toyota Camry and subcompact cars like the Volkswagen Jetta are more nimble, so their drivers have the ability to maneuver them to avoid crashes with the Explorers and the TrailBlazers.Being nimble and maneuverable, therefore, is often better than being big.Take, for example, emergency-stopping tests performed on both the TrailBlazer and the two-seater Porsche Boxster convertible.At 60 miles per hour, bringing the TrailBlazer to a sudden stop took about 150 feet and was not accomplished easily, for 5,000 pounds of rubber and steel does not stop that fast without a lot of screeching and bucking.The Boxster, however, can come to a complete stop in about 124 feet, which is a difference of about two car lengths.Obviously, two car lengths can, in many situations, mean the difference between life and death.Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that the accident fatality rate for drivers of even some subcompact cars is half that for drivers of SUVs like the Ford Explorer, and drivers of the midsize imports, cars like the Camry and the Honda Accord, have the lowest accident fatality rates of all.
(Source of information: Malcolm Gladwell, "Big and Bad," The New Yorker , January 12, 2004, pp.28-33.)
From this passage, a reader might logically draw which conclusion?

• A) SUVs are safer than cars.
• B) A car buyer whose main concern is safety on the road would be more likely to buy a midsize car than an SUV
• C) Cars and SUVs are about the same when it comes to safety.
• D) Most people buy SUVs as status symbols and don't care about safety.

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Definitions:

Cognitive Psychology

The branch of psychology that studies mental processes including how people think, perceive, remember, and learn.

Ivan Pavlov

A Russian physiologist known for his work in classical conditioning, demonstrating the learning process through the experiment with dogs and a bell.

Conditioning

A process in behavioral psychology where a response becomes more frequent or more predictable in a given environment due to reinforcement.

Early Perspectives

Refers to the initial theories and views in psychology, including structuralism, functionalism, psychoanalysis, and behaviorism, that shaped the development of the field.