PrepTest 156, Section 4, Question 18
Land developer: In a certain nation, stringent regulations(61 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the land(14 more words not shown)
- AIt confuses a(29 more words not shown)
- BIt justifies a(21 more words not shown)
- CIt unjustifiably overlooks(24 more words not shown)
- DIt fails to(24 more words not shown)
- EIt fails to(17 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A law can create a bad incentive and still provide a lot of protection.
I understand the developer's concern. If an endangered species prevents a landowner from building, the owner has a financial reason not to want that species on the property. Imagine discovering a protected spider where you planned to put a house. The construction restriction might make you less willing to protect the spider. That is the incentive problem the passage identifies.
But what happens to the owners who obey the restriction and leave the habitat alone? Removing the law could let them build where they currently cannot. We also haven't established that owners are actually killing the species or that they are legally allowed to do so. There could be protections against that too.
What we’re looking for
The conclusion treats the discouraging incentive as a reason removing the regulations probably won't harm the species. But the construction ban may be protecting habitat right now. For the flaw question, I want an answer about that overlooked protection. What would happen to the species when owners were free to build?
Working the answers
- A
This describes confusing something needed to produce an outcome with something needed to prevent that outcome. The developer doesn't make that particular switch. The problem is treating one effect of the regulations as if it settles their overall effect, while overlooking the protection they may provide.
- B
The conclusion predicts whether removing regulations would harm endangered species. It doesn't conclude that causing or preventing that harm is morally right or wrong. B describes a jump from facts to a value judgment, which is different from the unsupported prediction here.
- CCorrect
The 'factors' are the regulations. One effect is discouraging landowners from protecting endangered species, but a stronger opposing effect could be protecting the species by preventing construction.
Imagine that, out of a hundred affected owners, one responds by harming the species while ninety leave the habitat intact because they follow the restriction. These are hypothetical numbers, not facts in the passage. They show how an incentive problem could coexist with a much larger protective benefit. Removing the regulations might eliminate the bad incentive and also remove the greater protection. The developer hasn't compared those effects.
- D
This concerns whether a policy benefits land developers or landowners. The conclusion concerns harm to endangered species. Those groups could have different financial interests without resolving whether eliminating the construction rules would harm the animals and plants the rules protect.
- E
Owners without endangered species aren't the group facing the restriction described. Their possible reactions don't identify the central oversight: what happens to the endangered species already protected from development? The argument needs to consider that protection before claiming removal probably won't harm them.
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