LR Question 12 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Though Earth’s human population is increasing…
QUESTION TYPE: Weaken
CONCLUSION: We won’t face a plague of water shortages in the near future.
REASONING: We only use a small portion of our fresh water.
ANALYSIS: If you live in a desert area, you might see the flaw. Water isn’t distributed evenly.
I live in Canada. We’ve got tons of water. More than we know what to do with. Other countries aren’t so lucky, and they’re short on water already. With more population growth, they’ll face more shortages. It’s not that easy to share water. You can export it in bulk, but you can’t make it rain in other countries.
___________
- The argument already considers population growth, so saying trends are unpredictable doesn’t challenge it. Unpredictability could mean slower growth too, which doesn’t support the concern about shortages.
- CORRECT. This points out the possibility that we could have water shortages in some regions even if most regions have more than enough water. And this is a real problem – many arid regions face water shortages even at current population levels.
- So what? Apparently we’re only using a small portion of our water, so water conservation doesn’t seem like it needs to be a priority. If you thought “some regions don’t have water and thus need to conserve”….well, answer B is the answer that address that concern. Answer C doesn’t address differences between regions.
- The key word in this answer is eventually.
The argument only disagrees with the prediction that we’ll face shortages in the near future. - So? I see no reason to expect that water usage rates in different industries will increase at the same speed. And the key fact in the stimulus is that we’re using only a small portion of our water. This answer doesn’t tell us that we’ll run out of water even with massively increased agricultural usage.
More Resources for Weaken Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Weaken questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers weaken questions.
I have two questions about (A)
1. I think the author’s conclusion is: “Even if population growth trends change…”? “Unless population growth trends change…” is the opponent’s argument.
2. I’ve seen different versions of why (A) is wrong. Some say it’s because “growth trends are hard to predict” can mean that the population will grow faster, but it can also mean that the population will grow slower than expected. Some say it’s because the discussion here has already taken population change into account. It seems to me that these two explanations are based on different understandings. The first explanation still implies that “growth trends” are important, it’s just that “growth trends are hard to predict” is too vague to provide useful information…
On the first point, you’re correct. I’ve amended the explanation to make it more clear. But this doesn’t affect why A is wrong. Saying population trends are hard to predict doesn’t actually challenge the reasoning.
On the second point, the two explanations for why A is wrong aren’t conflicting but just highlight different aspects of the issue. If growth trends are unpredictable, that could mean slower growth too, which doesn’t necessarily support the concern about shortages. Plus, the argument already considers population growth, so A doesn’t introduce anything that directly weakens the conclusion. So both are valid, hopefully that helps! Thanks for your comment.
Many thanks for the clear explanation, Aaminah!
Upon further contemplation, I think the problem I have with the second explanation is that it seems slightly off-topic in a sense…
I mean, the author is arguing that: “even if the population growth trends continue, water shortages aren’t going to plague humankind.”
The concern of “population growth trends are hard to predict” in (A) implies that the growth rate might be 1. “faster than the current growth trend,” 2. “slower than the current growth trend,” or 3. “the same as the current growth trend.”
The last possibility is what the argument is about, and the argument is basically providing us with a reason that, even if the growth trend continues at the same rate, it wouldn’t plague humans because we are only using a small fraction of available water. So, the last possibility certainly doesn’t matter.
On its face, it seems like the first two possibilities matter (“the future growth trend is faster than the current growth trend” and “the future growth trend is slower than the current growth trend”). The first seems to slightly add to the concern of shortages, and the second seems to slightly reduce it. The second explanation seems to argue that the problem we have is that “we don’t even know which trend it’s drifting toward,” so the uncertainty makes (A) useless. But I think, technically, both the first and second possibilities are irrelevant to the argument. Since the argument is restricted to the discussion of “whether or not we will be plagued by water shortage if the growth trend continues,” the possibility that the growth trend in the future may be faster or slower than the current trend seems out of scope?
I understand it might be a bit overkill to examine this answer choice this way, but I got it wrong once a long time ago, so I’m just trying to fully understand its impact.
I think what the argument is saying is this: we are using a TINY fraction of our water, so we’re safe no matter what.
Population estimates could be off by a factor of 5x even and we’d still be safe. The author is saying we have a huge margin of safety.
B gets rid of this by suggesting that some areas might be using more water than they can sustain even now. Does that help address it? A hardly dents their argument because they said “relatively small fraction”.
I don’t think that your example would fall into the category of “absurd” but I certainly would not call it acceptable. I think attributing the label “humankind” to certain issues just because it affects a large amount of people/certain regions is inaccurate because it is extremely possible in the other regions that this “issue” is not a concern in the slightest.
I believe that for something to “plague humankind” people across the world need to somehow be vulnerable to it. Whether it is some sort of disease (another reason why I don’t like how they used plague as a verb here), ash from a volcano (which has the potential to affect countries across the world), global warming effects, food/oil shortages across the world, world wars, etc. I believe it needs to affect humankind as a whole/in general, not just a majority of humans in the world.
Sorry for the rant, hope that makes sense! Appreciate all you do, love your website!
You’re being overtechnical and ignoring the plain meaning of the question and answers. The correct answer says varies “significantly from region to region”. That means multiple regions have highs and lows, and so a water shortage would potentially affect multiple regions.
If we had wars happening in two dozen places, I think it would be fair to say that “war plagues humankind”. It’s rhetorical language. It doesn’t have to literally affect every human. After all, ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee, etc, etc. A lot of people consider humankind as a moral community and so if a problem affects many then it is a plague on us all. That seems to be the sense they meant it in.
I understand the reasoning for B, but I guess I got tripped up on the “humankind” in the stimulus. If the argument is that shortages will affect humankind, which I took to mean the entire human population and not just certain populations in certain regions, why does B undermine that?
Hi Marissa,
Well, I think we can make the assumption that if water shortages significantly affect certain regions, we can say that those shortages plague humankind in general. Otherwise, where would we draw the line? Would water shortages have to affect every single individual for those shortages to affect “humankind?”
Think of it this way, would it be absurd to say — in common parlance — that if water shortages significantly affected the Middle East and Asia, that wouldn’t be enough people to say those shortages affected “humankind”? Probably not.