PrepTest 124, Section 3, Question 8
Environmentalist: When bacteria degrade household cleaning products, vapors(30 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(7 more words not shown)
- AIn at least(17 more words not shown)
- BConverting a landfill(25 more words not shown)
- CIf a practice(21 more words not shown)
- DWhen landfills are(21 more words not shown)
- EIf vapors toxic(26 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Are the vapors still there when people start using the park?
The environmentalist describes a real danger within the passage: bacteria can break down household cleaning products and produce toxic vapors. But cleaning products in a landfill don't automatically establish that visitors to a later park are being harmed.
First, are the bacteria that do this actually present? Then, how long do the vapors last? Perhaps they dissipate within days, while the park opens years later. Or perhaps converting the landfill involves removing contaminated material or preventing visitors from being exposed. Those are possibilities to investigate, not facts we're adding to the passage. Each shows a step the argument needs between discarded products and harmed people.
What we’re looking for
We're asked for a necessary assumption. The answer must supply something this reasoning needs, though it doesn't have to settle every concern. I'd look for one of those missing links: the relevant bacteria are present, the danger remains, or people actually encounter it.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
At least some converted landfills must have the bacteria that break down these products. Without those bacteria, the particular process offered as evidence of harm isn't established at any of the parks. A handles an early step in the reasoning. It doesn't also have to show that vapors persist or reach visitors to be something the argument requires.
- B
This says toxic vapors and human exposure are required for any health damage from conversion. Why rule out every other kind of harm? The environmentalist could agree that toxic sludge also creates a health problem while continuing to argue that these vapors cause harm. B limits the possible dangers more than this argument needs.
- C
This covers any practice exposing humans to vapors from cleaning products, without restricting the claim to the toxic vapors or harmful exposure at issue here. The argument doesn't need every such exposure to cause damage. It needs its particular story about harmful vapors in converted landfills to work.
- D
The ability to prevent exposure isn't required for the conclusion that harm is occurring. Maybe preventive measures are possible; maybe they aren't. Either way, the environmentalist could make the same argument. Also, saying measures could be taken doesn't establish that they have been taken, so D doesn't by itself prove these parks are safe.
- E
Any landfill? Imagine the vapors are produced at a remote landfill where nobody encounters them. That could happen without anyone's health suffering, while visitors to converted parks really are harmed. The argument needs a connection at the parks in question, not a guarantee of human harm everywhere this process occurs.
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