Question: Smoking in bed has long been the main cause of home fires. Despite a significant decline in cigarette smoking in the last two decades, however, there has been no comparable decline in the number of people killed in home fires.

Each one of the following statements, if true, over the last two decades, helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy above EXCEPT:

(A) Compared to other types of home fires, home fires caused by smoking in bed usually cause relatively little damage before they are extinguished.
(B) Home fires caused by smoking in bed often break out after the home’s occupants have fallen asleep.
(C) Smokers who smoke in bed tend to be heavy smokers who are less likely to quit smoking than are smokers who do not smoke in bed.
(D) An increasing number of people have been killed in home fires that started in the kitchen.
(E) Population densities have increased, with the result that one home fire can cause more deaths than in previous decades.

Correct Answer: B
Explanation: Home fires caused by smoking in bed often break out after the home’s occupants have fallen asleep.- Correct.
Tells nothing about the home fires or decline in smoking. If smoking-caused home fires break out while people are sleeping, we would expect there to be serious consequences when such fires break out. With fewer smokers now, you'd thus expect fewer serious fires now, and thus fewer deaths in home fires. So B doesn't help to resolve the discrepancy at all.

Let's examine the other available options.

Option A
Compared to other types of home fires, home fires caused by smoking in bed usually cause relatively little damage before they are extinguished.- Incorrect. The reason for fire could be kitchen fires etc and not due to smoking in bed. If this is true, then bed-smoking fires aren’t likely to cause many fire-related deaths in the first place. Under these circumstances, a decline in smoking wouldn’t be expected to result in a corresponding decline in home-fire deaths.

Option C
Smokers who smoke in bed tend to be heavy smokers who are less likely to quit smoking than are smokers who do not smoke in bed.- Incorrect. Heavy smokers would not quit smoking in bed and that could be the reason for no change in home fires.

Option D
An increasing number of people have been killed in home fires that started in the kitchen- Incorrect. Gives another reason behind the increased number of deaths. Home fires could be due to kitchen fires.

Option E
Population densities have increased, with the result that one home fire can cause more deaths than in previous decades.- Incorrect. Home fires cause damage due to population densities. If kitchen fires or greater population densities are responsible for more home-fire deaths than before, the fact that no decline in fire deaths has accompanied the decline in cigarette smoking is far less surprising.

“Smoking in bed has long been the main cause of home fires. Despite a”- is a GMAT critical reasoning topic. This GMAT critical comes with five options and candidates need to choose the one which is correct. GMAT critical reasoning tests the logical and analytical skills of the candidates. To answer the question, a candidate can either find a piece of evidence that would weaken the argument or have logical flaws in the argument. Candidates get 65 minutes to answer 36 MCQ questions in the critical reasoning section of the GMAT.

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