LR Question 11 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: From 1880 to 2000 Britain’s economy grew fivefold…
QUESTION TYPE: Must Be False
FACTS:
- Britain’s economy was 5x larger in 2000 than in 1880.
- Britain’s per capita emissions of CO2 stayed the same over that period.
ANALYSIS: It’s helpful to think through scenarios. We know emissions are the same, per capita. But that’s not the same as total emissions. Britain’s total emissions could have grown, if Britain had more people in 2000. (per capita = per person).
So the single fact we know is: per capita emissions stayed the same despite economic growth. The right answer contradicts this.
Another approach is to scan through the answers quickly. You’re looking for one which has factors directly related to the stimulus. Many wrong answers mention technology, laws, etc: factors which aren’t mentioned in the stimulus. For something to be “must be false”, the stimulus had to address it.
___________
- This is possible. Britain’s per capita emissions didn’t decline, but that’s just one example. Some other country might have seen a per capita decline.
- The stimulus says nothing about what countries can afford.
- We have no idea if this is true. The stimulus didn’t mention technology.
- This is possible. The stimulus was about per capita emissions, whereas this answer is about total emissions. Total emissions will rise if per capita emissions stay the same but population grows.
- CORRECT. This contradicts the stimulus. In the stimulus, Britain’s economy grew, but per capita emissions did not increase.
I am not a fan of your reasoning for why you eliminated C– I think that in this particular question it is important to have a really good reason why each WRONG answer is COMPATIBLE or CBT.
I do however understand why C is incorrect and that is because it is intact plausible that while economic growth was happening at some point per capita emissions did increase but when 2000 hit because of the new technologies that developed, the per capita emissions total was back to equivalent of what it was in 1880.
I think we’re both talking about the same thing. I wrote “we have no idea if this is true” meaning it could be true. For example, suppose I say:
Dogs are great pets
Could it be true that:
Dogs can save lives
Dogs can be very expensive
Dogs can wake you up at night
Dogs can help sailors do their jobs
Dogs can fight crime
Dogs can fly
They all can be true. We have no idea if they are true or not.
You can certainly come up with an explanation as you did, but plausible is just another way of writing “this could have happened or could not have happened [and we don’t know which].”
Incompatible is its own standard. It has to contradict knowledge we know we have. i.e. “Dogs are bad pets” contradicts what I said.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.