PrepTest 118, Section 3, Question 2
The process by which nylon is manufactured releases(48 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(6 more words not shown)
- AEven if the(15 more words not shown)
- BEven if only(25 more words not shown)
- CIf cotton fiber(25 more words not shown)
- DIf the quantity(23 more words not shown)
- EIf thread and(32 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
No harmful gases doesn't mean no environmental harm.
Cotton might avoid the gas released when nylon is made and still have other costs. What if growing more cotton required clearing forest? What if processing it released waste into a river? Those are possibilities, not facts about cotton. They show why comparing one kind of pollution isn't automatically a comparison of the total damage.
Keep the conclusion in view, though. It concerns environmental damage, not whether cotton makes stronger rope or costs less money. An objection about price or product quality wouldn't answer this argument unless we connected it to environmental consequences.
What we’re looking for
For the weaken question, I'd expect some environmental drawback that the author has left out. We can accept that processing cotton doesn't release harmful gases while questioning whether replacing nylon with cotton will produce the improvement the author expects.
Working the answers
- A
We don't have to solve every environmental problem to cause less environmental damage. A switch could reduce one source of harm while leaving many others untouched. A would answer a promise to fix everything, but the author only predicts an improvement.
- B
This says even a partial switch would avoid some environmental damage. That supports the direction of the author's recommendation rather than challenging it. It gives us a benefit of replacing nylon, not an overlooked cost.
- CCorrect
This takes a different route from our prediction. The new problem isn't necessarily harm from cotton itself. It's that using less nylon for thread and rope would lead to more nylon being used elsewhere. That additional nylon brings additional manufacturing and its associated environmental cost.
How large would that increase be? We aren't told. If the switch saved 100 units of nylon and other uses added 1, much of the benefit could remain. If it saved 1 and other uses added 100, the result could be much worse. Those numbers illustrate possibilities; the answer doesn't establish either amount.
But we don't need to prove that the switch definitely makes things worse. The author counts the avoided nylon production as a benefit without accounting for the resulting increase elsewhere. C introduces an offset that could reduce or erase the expected benefit. That makes the claimed improvement less secure, even though it doesn't settle the final total.
- D
If less nylon is manufactured, less of several pollutants will be released. That gives another reason to expect environmental benefits from reducing nylon production. It doesn't supply a cost that challenges the proposed switch.
- E
This compares how quickly cotton production would grow under the two plans. More cotton production is not itself evidence of more environmental damage. We would still need a fact connecting that production with a harm. E doesn't give us the environmental drawback we were looking for.
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