LR Drill Set 9, Question 4
Editorial: Large corporations will not adopt environmentally friendly(35 more words not shown)
The editorial's conclusion follows logically(8 more words not shown)
- ANo business practices(9 more words not shown)
- BLarge corporations are(9 more words not shown)
- CThe only environmentally(16 more words not shown)
- DIn the distant(9 more words not shown)
- EA business practice(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why can't a practice be profitable and good for the environment?
The editorial predicts that large corporations won't adopt environmentally friendly practices anytime soon. I want a reason for such a broad prediction. Perhaps new laws or new technology could change what companies do. The premises need to rule out environmentally friendly choices, not just tell us that companies care about money.
What they actually give us is a chain of requirements. A corporation will adopt a practice only if it is profitable. To be profitable, that practice must be technologically viable: it must work with the available technology. So any practice a corporation adopts must meet that technology requirement.
Fine. Where did the environment enter that chain?
Maybe an environmentally friendly practice also works technologically and makes money. Then the company could adopt it while satisfying every rule in the passage. We need a connection that blocks that possibility.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to make the conclusion follow. I'd look for a rule saying environmentally friendly practices won't be technologically viable in the near future. They would then fail a requirement for profitability, and profitability is required for adoption.
Working the answers
- A
This concerns practices that used to be technologically viable. The conclusion is about what corporations will adopt in the near future. Even if none of those past practices was environmentally friendly, a different practice might be viable and environmentally friendly soon. The time period doesn't give us the exclusion we need.
- B
Caring more about profits doesn't mean a corporation will refuse to protect the environment. Imagine a cleaner process that also lowers costs. A company focused entirely on profit could adopt it, with the environmental benefit coming along for the ride. B doesn't establish that those goals conflict.
- CCorrect
Every environmentally friendly practice now fails the technology requirement throughout the relevant near future. That means it cannot be profitable during that time under the passage's rule. And if it cannot be profitable, a large corporation will not adopt it.
Follow a proposed environmentally friendly practice through the chain: no technological viability, therefore no profitability, therefore no adoption. C connects the environmental claim to the requirements the premises already give us.
- D
The distant future doesn't settle the near future. Practices could become environmentally friendly much later whether or not corporations adopt any environmentally friendly practices soon. This does not close the gap in the prediction we're evaluating.
- E
This makes technological viability, now or soon, a requirement for being environmentally friendly. It doesn't make the two incompatible. A practice could be environmentally friendly, technologically viable, and profitable all at once. E therefore leaves open precisely the kind of corporate adoption the conclusion rules out.
More Sufficient Assumption questions
- Logical Reasoning Drill Set 10, Question 1Sufficient Assumption
- Logical Reasoning Drill Set 12, Question 4Sufficient Assumption
- Logical Reasoning Drill Set 13, Question 1Sufficient Assumption
- Logical Reasoning Drill Set 3, Question 7Sufficient Assumption
- Logical Reasoning Drill Set 4, Question 7Sufficient Assumption
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Sufficient Assumption questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.