PrepTest 143, Section 3, Question 14

What we’re looking for

Working the answers

• A

  Spending more on housing doesn't establish spending most of one's salary on housing. Imagine Monique earning a huge salary: even expensive rent could take only a small fraction of it. That is an unsupported move from a larger expense to a majority of income, not a mistaken claim that shifting something between categories reduces its total.

• B

  Karen's particular home and apartment might not follow the typical size pattern. She could move from a large apartment to a tiny house. But the argument concerns whether an individual example matches a general tendency. It doesn't move living space from one category to another and mistakenly claim an aggregate change.

• C

  Ward's farm could be an exception to the county pattern. Knowing what happened to most formerly non-corn fields in the county doesn't establish what occupies most of Ward's farm. That transfers a broader pattern to a particular farm rather than confusing relocation with reduction.

• D
  Correct

  The three meals correspond to the large cities, where most of the total is currently concentrated. Snacks correspond to the rural areas receiving what gets moved. Calories correspond to pollution.

  Javier eats smaller meals but eats the rest of the same food as snacks. The calories haven't disappeared; they've moved to another part of the day. Counting fewer calories at breakfast, lunch, and dinner doesn't show fewer calories overall, just as counting less pollution in the cities doesn't show less pollution nationwide.

• E

  This proposes a change that actually reduces pollution per passenger. Branson merely moves people without establishing a reduction in what each person produces. E could still need more information to justify “most” of the city's pollution being eliminated—for example, how much comes from cars rather than other sources. But that is a different gap. It isn't assuming that moving the same pollution elsewhere makes the total smaller.