PrepTest 134, Section 1, Question 14
Superconductor development will enable energy to be transported(59 more words not shown)
The claim that superconductor development(15 more words not shown)
- AIt is a(27 more words not shown)
- BIt is a(26 more words not shown)
- CIt is an(20 more words not shown)
- DIt is a(23 more words not shown)
- EIt is cited(22 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Losing less energy on the way to a factory sounds useful. But how expensive would it be to install the new equipment? That's where I'd pause before accepting the prediction about productivity. We might need new materials or costly changes to the existing infrastructure. Improved energy transport could offer a benefit without automatically making the transition worthwhile.
The author supports the prediction with an earlier transition: oil and natural gas replaced coal, shipping costs fell, and industrial productivity improved. The final sentence explains why transport mattered. Shipping costs depend partly on distance and partly on material lost along the way. Reducing those burdens helped factory owners in the earlier case; the author expects a comparable benefit from superconductors.
What we’re looking for
We're asked about the role of the productivity prediction. That's the claim the comparison is supposed to support, and it's the claim our installation-cost concern would challenge. So it's a conclusion. We can identify that role without deciding whether the historical comparison proves the prediction.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The prediction about productivity is the conclusion. The discussion of transit losses supplies part of the support by helping explain the historical comparison: lower shipping burdens benefited factories when fuel sources changed, so the author expects more efficient energy transport to benefit industry again. “Partial support” is apt because this detail works together with the other facts about the earlier transition.
- B
The author isn't giving a broad general rule and then using superconductors as one illustration of it. The claim is specifically about what superconductor development will probably do. The fact that it will reduce energy losses is offered as a reason for that prediction, not as an example showing an already-stated generalization.
- C
This turns the support around. The ability to transport energy farther with less loss is presented first as a fact about superconductors. The author then uses that fact to predict improved productivity. The productivity prediction is not an assumption used to establish the technology's transport capabilities.
- D
The historical replacement of coal by oil and natural gas supports the analogy. The author doesn't use a prediction about future superconductors to prove that this past replacement happened. D reverses which claim supports which.
- E
The author treats the dependence of shipping costs on distance and transit losses as part of the explanation for the earlier improvement. The productivity prediction doesn't establish that relationship. Again, the historical cost information helps support the prediction, rather than receiving its support from that prediction.
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