Q11 - From 1880 to 2000 Britain's

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Must be False (Principle). The key word here is "incompatible".

Stimulus Breakdown:
Two facts:
1) Britain's economy grew 5x
2) Per capita emissions stayed the same

Answer Anticipation:
Since we get two straight-forward facts, we're not expecting either to be directly contradicted (that'd be too easy). Instead, we should anticipate a statement refuted by these two things being true. Let's find something stating that the economy can't improve without increasing per capita emissions, which is directly contradicted by the example of Britain.

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Out of scope. Britain saw an equivalent amount of per capita emissions, not a decrease.

(B) Out of scope, probably. 5x growth sounds big. But we actually don't know - since 5x could be huge growth, or small growth, we don't know if this answer reflects the situation. Since we don't know, we can't say it's false.

(C) Out of scope. Just…everything about this answer. The stimulus doesn't distinguish between "initial" and "eventual", and it certainly doesn't bring up new technologies. While we're allowed to say that new technologies do exist, we don't know how those intersect with emissions.

(D) Too broad/out of scope. We only know about Britain, so we can't extrapolate. We also aren't told anything about population.

(E) Bingo. The argument tells us that Britain saw economic growth, but not emissions growth. This answer states that economic growth always leads to emissions growth. The British example disproves this.

Takeaway/Pattern: When a Must be False question brings up a single example, expect an answer that gives an extreme statement to which the situation from the stimulus serves as a counterexample.

#officialexplanation

[amr]

To say C is out of scope seems pretty extreme. It is directly dealing with economic growth and a direct relationship to emissions of greenhouse gases. I also don't see how the terms "initially" and "eventually" are incompatible with examining a time frame in the stimulus that has a beginning and end date.

But given that this is a CANNOT be true question, it should be noted that C could be true, and thus is not the right answer. If it were the case that emissions grew continuously until peaking in the 1900's when new technology came about, emissions could eventually decrease back to the 1880 level in the year 2000. Thus, C could be compatible and is not correct.