PrepTest 122, Section 2, Question 20
Environmentalist: Discarding old appliances can be dangerous: refrigerators(67 more words not shown)
The environmentalist's statements, if true,(9 more words not shown)
- AOld fluorescent bulbs(3 more words not shown)
- BAppliances containing heavy(5 more words not shown)
- CChlorofluorocarbons are harmful(3 more words not shown)
- DNewer appliances are(8 more words not shown)
- EAppliances should be(4 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The disposal method matters. These appliances contain dangerous materials, but the passage doesn't say every way of discarding them creates a threat.
A properly operated landfill is explicitly described as safe for these materials. An improperly operated one can let lead and mercury contaminate groundwater. Burning the trash creates a different problem: heavy metals poison the ash and escape into the air. So we shouldn't collapse the options into “all disposal is dangerous.” The qualifications tell us which situations create the concern.
What we’re looking for
The question asks what the statements most strongly support. I'd stay close to the environmentalist's warning: avoid disposal practices that let these materials contaminate the surroundings. Proper landfill operation addresses one route; the description of burning gives us a reason to avoid that route for items containing heavy metals.
Working the answers
- A
Recycling might sound environmentally helpful, but this passage doesn't tell us what recycling fluorescent bulbs involves or recommend it. We have information about landfills and incineration. The fact that one method is dangerous doesn't automatically establish that some unexamined alternative should be used.
- BCorrect
Burning appliances that contain heavy metals lets those metals contaminate the ash and escape into the air. That supplies a direct environmental reason not to incinerate those appliances. The answer keeps both parts of the warning together: the particular material and the disposal method that releases it.
- C
The passage mentions chlorofluorocarbons in refrigerators, but the account of materials escaping into the air concerns heavy metals. We can't silently transfer that discussion to chlorofluorocarbons and conclude something specific about their effects on the atmosphere. Whatever we may know from outside this question, the statements here don't supply that particular connection.
- D
No comparison of newer and older appliances is provided. Learning that old appliances can contain hazardous substances doesn't tell us whether newer ones are more dangerous, less dangerous, or equally dangerous. D requires a comparison the passage never makes.
- E
This drops the qualification about proper operation. The environmentalist explicitly says these materials pose no threat in properly operated landfills. That is why the passage doesn't support keeping all appliances out of landfills. The concern about contaminated groundwater applies when landfills are operated improperly; it doesn't erase the safe option the passage gave us.
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