PrepTest 158, Section 4, Question 6
If the proposed air pollution measures were to(51 more words not shown)
The argument is most vulnerable(7 more words not shown)
- Afails to consider(21 more words not shown)
- Bpresumes, without providing(15 more words not shown)
- Cprovides no explicit(14 more words not shown)
- Dattempts to support(8 more words not shown)
- Ediscusses air pollution(13 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why should a 20 percent drop in ozone produce a 20 percent drop in medical costs?
We know the proposed measures would reduce ozone by one fifth, and we know the current ozone produces over $5 billion in health costs. But we haven't been told how those costs change as ozone changes. The calculation quietly assumes that they move together in roughly the same proportion.
Imagine lowering ozone from 100 units to 80 units. What if 80 units still causes the same expensive health problems as 100? Perhaps even a much smaller amount could cause those problems. These aren't claims about the actual effects of ozone; they show what we would need to know before predicting a billion dollars in savings.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, look for that unsupported connection between the amount of ozone and the amount spent on ozone-related health problems.
Working the answers
- A
Other pollutants might increase overall health costs, but the conclusion is specifically about ozone-related costs. More sludge in a river wouldn't show that the forecast of savings from less ozone is wrong. Keep the objection tied to the cost the author actually predicts.
- BCorrect
The author assumes that ozone-related health costs vary roughly in proportion to ozone levels. That is what makes the one-fifth reduction turn into roughly a billion dollars in savings. Without information about that relationship, the arithmetic doesn't establish the result.
We don't have to prove that the costs fail to move proportionally. The flaw is treating that relationship as established when no evidence for it has been supplied.
- C
The author says what would happen if the measures were adopted, not that they will be adopted. We don't need to know whether the city council is likely to approve the plan to evaluate the predicted consequences of adopting it.
- D
Mentioning health problems doesn't automatically make an argument an emotional appeal. The author uses ozone levels and costs to calculate expected savings. There is no appeal like “Think of the suffering children” taking the place of that calculation.
- E
We have no reason to think the author is using ozone to distract us from other health costs. Nor does this argument have to discuss every expensive health problem. The relevant error is inside its own calculation: less ozone is assumed to yield proportionately lower ozone-related costs.
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