PrepTest 101, Section 3, Question 12
People in the tourist industry know that excessive(79 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(12 more words not shown)
- ANo support is(11 more words not shown)
- BThat something is(17 more words not shown)
- CThe argument shifts(21 more words not shown)
- DThe possibility that(10 more words not shown)
- EThe argument establishes(21 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Not wanting to damage the industry doesn't make it impossible to damage the beach.
I can see the incentive the author points to. If excessive development ruins the seaside's appeal, tourism businesses have a reason to avoid it. Hotels and restaurants depend on people wanting to visit. Let's grant the claim that people in the industry won't knowingly do something that damages their industry.
What about damage they don't anticipate? A business might approve a project without recognizing an environmental consequence. Or the industry might bring more visitors to an area, and those visitors might cause damage. The businesses' desire to preserve their own livelihoods wouldn't necessarily prevent either problem.
What we’re looking for
My main prediction is that the flaw will concern damage the industry causes indirectly, through the tourists it brings in. Damage by an entirely unrelated developer wouldn't, by itself, show we have something to fear from this industry, so the connection matters. More generally, the conclusion goes from a claim about what people won't knowingly do to the reassurance that there is nothing to fear. A flaw answer should expose the harm that reassurance leaves out.
Working the answers
- A
The claim that excessive development hurts tourism is part of the information the argument asks us to accept. We can grant it and still see why the reassurance doesn't follow. The mistake is in moving from the industry's incentive to avoid known harm to the claim that it poses no danger at all; demanding more evidence for the starting claim doesn't identify that mistake.
- B
The argument doesn't say the tourism industry and environmental damage can never exist in the same place. Its conclusion concerns whether the industry gives people a reason to fear damage. Claims about causing a problem and merely being present alongside it are different, and the argument doesn't make the coexistence claim B describes.
- C
We aren't given a few individual tourism workers and then told everyone in the industry shares their traits. The premises make general claims about people in the industry from the start. There is no small group whose characteristics are stretched to cover the whole industry.
- DCorrect
The industry could harm the environment without realizing in advance that it would do so. That makes the no-knowing-harm premise compatible with real damage. D reaches the broader problem we noticed, though it focuses directly on unintended harm rather than specifically on damage by tourists. A good intention or an incentive to avoid harm doesn't guarantee that every consequence will be understood and prevented.
- E
The argument doesn't start by establishing that avoiding harm is merely likely and then upgrade that likelihood to certainty. It starts with the stronger claim about what people would never knowingly do. The overlooked distinction is between knowing and unintentional harm, not between a stated probability and a guaranteed outcome.
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