Question

ordering the chaos of the contemporary world: an introduction to freakonomics
pre-test complete
1 2
read the following excerpt from levitt and dubners freakonomics.
despite all the attention paid to rogue companies like enron, academics know very little about the practicalities of white - collar crime. the reason? there are no good data. a key fact of white - collar crime is that we hear about only the very slim fraction of people who are caught cheating. most embezzlers lead quiet and theoretically happy lives; employees who steal company property are rarely detected.
with street crime, meanwhile, that is not the case. a mugging or a burglary or a murder is usually tallied whether or not the criminal is caught. a street crime has a victim, who typically reports the crime to the police, who generate data, which in turn generate thousands of academic papers by criminologists, sociologists, and economists. but white - collar crime presents no obvious victim. from who, exactly, did the masters of enron steal? and how can you measure something if you dont know to whom it happened, or with what frequency, or in what magnitude?
the excerpt helps the authors support their conclusion by

• evaluating a logical fallacy
• providing statistical evidence
• presenting logical statements
• summarizing their claim

Explanation:

To solve this, we analyze each option:

1. "Evaluating a logical fallacy" – The excerpt doesn't analyze a fallacy, so this is incorrect.
2. "Providing statistical evidence" – There are no statistics (numbers, data points) given, so this is wrong.
3. "Presenting logical statements" – The excerpt logically compares white - collar crime (lack of data, few caught) and street crime (data generated as crimes are tallied, victims report), using logical reasoning to support the conclusion about white - collar crime data issues.
4. "Summarizing their claim" – It's not a summary but a logical comparison to support the claim.

Answer:

1. presenting logical statements