PrepTest 123, Section 2, Question 8
Proponents of the electric car maintain that when(69 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(5 more words not shown)
- Awill have worse(7 more words not shown)
- Bwill probably remain(7 more words not shown)
- Crequires that purely(8 more words not shown)
- Dwill increase the(8 more words not shown)
- Ewill not produce(6 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Better batteries would help on a long drive. I want to reach the next charging stop, and I don't want to spend the whole trip waiting for the car to charge. But would fixing the batteries be enough to make electric cars widely used? What if they're too expensive? What if people still don't want them? The supporters have identified a problem without showing that it's the only one.
Their next claim is environmental: because the cars don't produce emissions, widespread use would reduce the damage from auto emissions. “Abatement” means a reduction.
Where does the electricity come from?
That is the objection the author develops. The batteries need power from somewhere. The passage gives us three possible sources—damming rivers, nuclear plants, and coal-fired plants—and says all three cause considerable environmental damage. Moving the power source away from the car doesn't make that damage disappear.
What we’re looking for
Now we need to complete the argument. My prediction is that electric cars may not be the environmental solution their supporters think they are. Keep that tied to the point the author actually supports: the environmental cost of supplying the electricity. Our earlier questions about cost and popularity were reasonable reactions, but this argument doesn't resolve them.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The cars will have worse environmental consequences than their proponents may believe. The proponents focus on the absence of emissions from the car, while the author points to damage from producing its electricity. That overlooked damage supports A's comparison with the proponents' expectations. It doesn't require a claim that electric cars are worse overall than gasoline cars.
- B
Environmental damage doesn't establish what people will buy. They might still prefer electric cars for other reasons. We questioned the prediction of widespread use while reading, but the author's evidence concerns the source of electricity. It doesn't establish that electric cars will remain less popular.
- C
The proponents say that solving the battery problems would lead to widespread use. C says that success cannot happen until technical problems are solved. Those aren't the same: giving one way to achieve success doesn't rule out every other way. C also leaves out the author's environmental objection, which is what the unfinished conclusion needs to address.
- D
We haven't compared the total emissions of the two systems. Electricity generation could cause damage while the switch still reduced emissions overall. D adds a claim about an increase that the passage never establishes.
- E
There can still be environmental damage and also be a net reduction. Suppose the old system caused 100 units of damage and the new one caused 50. The new system would have a real environmental cost, but switching would still reduce the total.
The author's evidence establishes the cost of supplying electricity, not that this cost wipes out every benefit of the switch. E needs that extra comparison. A stays with what the objection supports: worse consequences than the proponents may expect, rather than no improvement at all.
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