LR Question 14 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Environmentalist: Pollution from gasoline burned by…
QUESTION TYPE: Most Strongly Supported
FACTS:
- Gasoline exhaust creates environmental problems.
- Gas prices don’t take account of these problems, so these problems don’t affect how much people drive.
- Taxes on gasoline would reflect the environmental cost. People would pollute less.
ANALYSIS: I couldn’t prephrase anything from these facts. If you’re unable to prephrase a Most Strongly Supported question, you should look over the stimulus a second time to make sure the facts are clear. This clarity will let you go through the answers much faster and with fewer errors.
___________
- I skipped this as soon as I read “should”. The stimulus just gave us facts about what is true. Facts can never prove a moral point.
- It’s possible that people will become environmentally aware, but it doesn’t have to be true. If gas is expensive, you buy less gas, and pollute less as a result. That will happen even if you don’t think about the environment at all.
- CORRECT. This almost feels like it’s repeating the stimulus, but actually it’s a combination of facts 2 and 3. Fact three says taxes would lead people to pollute less, but it doesn’t say why. Fact 2 says higher gas costs cause people to drive less. Combining these two ideas leads to this answer choice.
- This is absurd. You have to take answer choices literally. This answer means that you think of nothing but gas costs when you drive. You ignore, for example: do I need to drive anywhere? How much does a car cost? Do I need to do some work, rather than drive around?
This answer says the only factor in driving is gas cost. Presumably, if gas were free, then you would drive forever, according to this answer. - This actually contradicts the stimulus. The stimulus said higher gas taxes will reduce pollution. Probably this happens whether or not consumers think of the environment.
More Resources for Most Strongly Supported Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Most Strongly Supported questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers most strongly supported questions.
I’m confused about C because it uses the word “fully.” The stimulus says nothing about the pollution being “fully reflected” in the price. The author could be saying that just a slightly more accurate reflection of the pollution would result in drivers buying less gas.
That’s a good observation, but I think the key here is that it’s a MSS question, and not something like MBT.
The stimulus commits the author to the core idea that:
– Right now, environmental costs are not reflected in gas prices, so they don’t affect driving decisions.
– When those costs are reflected (via heavier taxes), consumers will pollute less.
So that tells us: greater reflection of cost -> less consumption.
C essentially says the exact same thing. “Fully reflected” does not mean the author explicitly said 100% and no less. It just describes a maximal version of the very mechanism the author endorses. That’s fine because if at least partial reflection reduces consumption, then full reflection would not undermine that effect – it would fall in the same direction.
Hope that helps! Let me know if you further questions.
I struggle to how premise 2 produces the result of “higher gas price cause people to drive less”
Premise 2: Cost not reflected (Gas prices don’t take account of these problems) => Consumer decision to drive unaffected (so these problems don’t affect how much people drive)
What explanation says premise 2 is able to produce:
Cost reflected (Gas prices DO take account of these problems) => Consumer decision to drive LESS (so these problems DO affect how much people drive)
What I see here is a case A => B somehow becomes -A => -B. What do y’all think? ( I see higher price => cost reflected from premise 3, and I notice there is a missing link between cost reflected and pollute less; my issue is premise 2 does not produce the link between cost reflected and less gas correctly)
It’s just an inference based on premise 2. Premise 2 says prices don’t reflect environmental costs, so they don’t affect how much people drive (i.e. still drive the same). The inference from that is that IF they were to be reflected, it probably would affect their decision (i.e. higher prices = drive less).
The sentence says “usually does not affect”, so I wouldn’t treat it as a conditional. You’re allowed to use common sense to infer that if they’re saying no change in costs doesn’t make people switch their driving habits, a change in cost probably will.
Note that answer C also says “on average”, so all of these statements are qualified. They’re not saying this is ironclad or applies to everyone (hence why it’s also not a conditional statement).
Hope that addresses your question! Let me know if you have further ones.
B & C are both the exact same answer. You can break down their literary components and look up word definitions to prove this. Both B & C are correct answers. In fact it can be argued B is more correct than C as it accomplishes the exact same answer with less words.
They’re not the same thing.
B says that heavier taxes would make consumers aware of environmental problems. Where does it say that in the stimulus? The stimulus only says that gasoline can cause environmental issues, and that raising taxes would cause consumers to pollute less. It doesn’t mention AWARENESS on the part of consumers anywhere. So this is wrong.
C is correct. Rather than breaking it down into literary components, it’s more useful to break it down into necessary and sufficient components. Breaking it down this way, Answer Choice C reads:
“if pollution cost reflected in gasoline price -> consumer purchase less gas”
This is an exact rephrase of the last sentence in the stimulus.