PrepTest 125, Section 4, Question 2
Kris: Years ago, the chemical industry claimed that(73 more words not shown)
Terry responds to Kris's argument(7 more words not shown)
- Aquestioning the reliability(9 more words not shown)
- Battacking the accuracy(11 more words not shown)
- Carguing that an(12 more words not shown)
- Dquestioning the strength(9 more words not shown)
- Erejecting Kris's interpretation(5 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A phone ringing in a movie theater is annoying. Is it comparable to chemicals being dumped into drinking water?
Kris puts both under the heading of pollution and uses the regulation of the chemical industry to argue for regulating the cellular industry. But giving two things the same broad label doesn't make their harms the same. Terry points to a difference: chemical pollution can physically harm people, while, in Terry's account, the phone problem is annoyance.
What we’re looking for
We're asked how Terry responds. We don't have to settle every possible harm a phone could cause or decide whether phone use should ever be regulated. Follow the move Terry actually makes: these two cases differ in a way that matters to Kris's comparison. That difference challenges the attempt to carry the case for regulating one industry over to the other.
Working the answers
- A
Terry doesn't question who supplied Kris's information or whether that source is trustworthy. Terry challenges the comparison between the two kinds of pollution. A claim about a source's reliability would be a different response.
- B
Terry doesn't deny that the chemical industry made the earlier claim or that it is now regulated. In fact, Terry points to the physical harm chemical pollution can cause. The disagreement concerns whether that case supports the same treatment of cellular phones, not whether Kris accurately described the chemical industry.
- C
Terry doesn't argue that pollution causes technological progress instead of technological progress causing pollution. Nor does Terry switch the direction of any other cause-and-effect relationship. The response distinguishes the harms involved in the two situations.
- DCorrect
Kris's analogy treats chemical pollution and phone-related noise as similar enough to justify regulation of both industries. Terry questions that similarity by distinguishing physical harm from annoyance. If the reason for regulating chemicals depends on a kind of harm the phone case lacks, regulating chemicals doesn't automatically establish the same case for regulating phones.
- E
Terry doesn't discuss what counts as technological progress. The reply concerns the nature of the harm caused by each kind of pollution. A shared reference to technology in Kris's argument doesn't turn Terry's response into a dispute over the meaning of that term.
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