PrepTest 115, Section 1, Question 2
By the year 2030, the Earth's population is(450 more words not shown)
The author of the passage(15 more words not shown)
- AAn increase in(21 more words not shown)
- BIt is likely(18 more words not shown)
- CThe current standard(15 more words not shown)
- DAll countries could(20 more words not shown)
- ESupplies of critical(27 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
My first thought is that today's consumption patterns couldn't support a high standard of living for all ten billion people. But that claim has conditions: no new resources or substitutes, and consumption continuing at current rates. The proposed industrial ecosystem is a way to change that picture.
Working the answers
- A
We aren't told that improving life in developing countries requires making life worse in industrialized ones. The proposal changes how goods are produced, not who must give up prosperity.
- B
The author explicitly denies that the estimates forecast a bleak outcome (paragraph 2). A substantial decline in everyone's living standards by 2030 isn't the forecast being made.
- C
This removes the possibility of changing industrial practices. The opening identifies a problem with continuing current consumption patterns, not an unavoidable consequence of any population increase.
- DCorrect
This sounds like the proposal's goal, though we should check the strong claim about avoiding depletion. Paragraph 3 says materials in the ideal system would be conserved through circulation, as in nature’s ecosystems. That supplies the support: materials keep circulating. D describes what could happen if the ideal were implemented, not a promise that we can achieve it soon.
- E
The warning is about sustaining high consumption under specified conditions. It doesn't establish that lowering living standards in both groups is necessary to avoid serious danger of depletion by 2030. Reusing materials or developing substitutes offers another response. Reducing everyone's standard of living isn't presented as the only escape.
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