When Alicia Green Borrowed a Neighbor's Car without Permission, The GMAT Critical Reasoning

Question: When Alicia Green borrowed a neighbour's car without permission, the police merely gave her a warning. However, when Peter Foster did the same thing, he was charged with automobile theft. Peter came to the attention of the police because the car he was driving was hit by a speeding taxi. Alicia was stopped because the car she was driving had defective tail lights. It is true that the car Peter took got damaged and the car Alicia took did not, but since it was the taxi that caused the damage this difference was not due to any difference in the blameworthiness of their behaviour. Therefore, Alicia should also have been charged with automobile theft.

If all of the claims offered in support of the conclusion are accurate, each of the following could be true EXCEPT:

1. The interests of justice would have been better served if the police had released Peter Foster with a warning.
2. Alicia Green had never before driven a car belonging to someone else without first securing the owner's permission.
3. Peter Foster was hit by the taxi while he was running a red light, whereas Alicia Green drove with extra care to avoid drawing the attention of the police to the car she had taken.
4. Alicia Green barely missed hitting a pedestrian when she sped through a red light ten minutes before she was stopped by the police for driving a car that had defective tail lights.
5. Peter Foster had been cited for speeding twice in the preceding month, whereas Alicia Green had never been cited for a traffic violation.

When Alicia Green borrowed a neighbour's car without permission, the police merely gave her a warning- is a GMAT Critical question. This particular GMAT Critical Reasoning topic has been taken from ‘The Official Guide of GMAT Verbal Review 2015’. This particular question is inference type. For this type, the candidates need to provide logical conclusions based on evidence as given in the passage. GMAT critical reasoning tests the logical and analytical skills of the candidates. GMAT critical reasoning requires candidates to find the strengths and weaknesses of the argument, or find the logical flaw in the argument.  The GMAT CR section contains 10 -13 GMAT critical reasoning questions out of 36 GMAT verbal questions.  

Answer: C

Explanation: 

Evaluation of The Argument 

The statement states -When Alicia Green borrowed a neighbour's car without permission, the police merely gave her a warning. However, when Peter Foster did the same thing, he was charged with automobile theft. Peter came to the attention of the police because the car he was driving was hit by a speeding taxi. Alicia was stopped because the car she was driving had defective tail lights. It is true that the car Peter took got damaged and the car Alicia took did not, but since it was the taxi that caused the damage this difference was not due to any difference in the blameworthiness of their behaviour. Therefore, Alicia should also have been charged with automobile theft.

If all of the claims offered in support of the conclusion are accurate, each of the following could be true EXCEPT:

1. No. This is the point of the passage that the punishment was not equitable.
2. No. Since this is independent of what is stated in the passage, whether it is true or false does not affect the truth of the passage.
3. Yes. The passage states that “the taxi … caused the damage” and asserts that there was no difference in the blameworthiness of Peter and Alicia. However, this would be incorrect if Alicia was driving with extra caution while Peter was driving recklessly.
4. No. Since this is independent of what is stated in the passage, whether it is true or false does not affect the truth of the passage.
5. We cannot talk about the authenticity of this info, as there is nothing given in the para about it.

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