PrepTest 158, Section 4, Question 2
Columnist: Making some types of products from recycled(44 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the columnist's(12 more words not shown)
- Auses the word(19 more words not shown)
- Btreats an effect(16 more words not shown)
- Cfails to consider(19 more words not shown)
- Dfails to consider(14 more words not shown)
- Epresumes that simply(17 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Recycling takes energy. I can accept that. But what do we gain by recycling instead of throwing the material away and starting over?
The columnist compares the energy required by the two processes and finds no advantage for recycling. Suppose that's right. We still haven't compared everything that matters to the environment. Recycling paper might mean cutting down fewer trees. Reusing material might mean putting less waste into a landfill. Those are possible benefits to investigate, even if the energy bills are the same.
What we’re looking for
That's the missing part of this comparison. Equal energy consumption doesn't establish equal overall environmental damage. For the flaw question, we want an answer pointing out that the columnist has focused on one environmental cost without considering benefits elsewhere.
Working the answers
- A
The meaning of “environment” stays the same: the natural environment affected by production. A shift would look like someone saying, “My home environment is unpleasant, so protecting the environment is pointless.” The first use concerns conditions at home; the second concerns the natural world. Nothing like that happens here.
- B
The columnist does say that energy production damages the environment. But the argument never takes something caused by that damage and mistakes it for the cause of the damage. B describes a specific reversal that isn't present. Our concern is the incomplete comparison of environmental effects.
- C
The conclusion is about some types of products, specifically the types whose energy requirements are being compared. It doesn't generalize from those products to all recycled products.
If I say some people are seven feet tall, pointing out that seven-foot people aren't representative of the whole population doesn't refute me. I never claimed that everyone was that tall. Likewise, these products needn't represent all recycled products for the columnist's limited conclusion to be relevant. The problem lies in how their overall effects are assessed.
- DCorrect
Benefits outside energy consumption could make recycling better overall, even if its energy use is no lower. Saving raw materials or reducing landfill waste could matter to the comparison. The argument needs to consider those possibilities before concluding that the two ways of making the products are probably equally damaging.
- E
The columnist doesn't observe one event happening after another and infer that the first caused the second. There is no timeline of events doing that work. Don't choose a description of a familiar error unless the argument actually makes that error.
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