Q17

[lhermary]

I'm having a hard time understanding why the answer isn't E.



Thanks

[ohthatpatrick]

Whenever I see a question stem that looks like,
"The author mentions ____ in order to"
or
"The author's reference to ____ serves to"

I expect that the correct answer will be a paraphrase of the sentence BEFORE what the question is asking about. (This isn't true all the time, but it is true about 80% of the time for these questions)

You often see these question stems used when the passage contains a "for example" sentence. The example is meant to illustrate the previous claim. So, in the wording of the question stem, the author mentions the example primarily in order to support the previous claim.

The 2nd paragraph's topic sentence establishes that the author wants to discuss the difficulty of figuring out how high a carbon tax should be.

The key sentence for Q17 is the sentence BEFORE line 22, lines 19-21.

The author is saying that we can come up with a rough estimate of how steep the tax would have to be to have a certain effect. Then "one writer" is discussed as an example of coming up with a rough estimate of how high the tax would have to be.

I think answers (A) and (E) are the closest contenders for paraphrasing lines 19-21.

(A) "indicate in a general way" = "estimate roughly"
"the size a tax must be for it to be effective" = "the size of the tax needed to effect a given level of emission reduction"

(E) "effective carbon tax rate" is still a good match for line 19-21. However, "show how it can be calculated" doesn't fit the passage.

The author just provides us with this writer's final calculations. We don't get any info regarding HOW these percentages were calculated (other than that 1988 was used as a base year).

I agree with you that (E) is temptingly close. But with this down to 2 situation, we should ask ourselves two questions:

1. Which of these two choices better answers the question? (and for this question, that really means "which of these two better paraphrases the point the author was making right before he said FOR EXAMPLE?")

2. Was the author's purpose in bringing up this writer's figures to show the reader how to calculate an effective carbon tax rate or to give the reader a rough idea of how big an effective carbon tax rate would have to be?

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have lingering concerns.

[rbkfrye]

Yeah I think I still agree with lhermary... I feel that (A) doesn't describe at all why the author "primarily mentions the estimates""”it describes why the writer mentions the estimates.

Unlike the writer, the author isn't "indicating" any general size he recommends for the tax, and is if anything indicating the opposite. The preceding sentence makes it clear he's mentioning the writer as a flawed example ("at first glance"), underscored by how the author attacks the estimates in the following sentences. Furthermore, the topic (1st) sentence commits the ¶ to not giving any prescriptions about tax size ("it is not clear")"”he's arguing that nobody knows the effective size, let alone he.

As for E I'd argue that yes, we might have the "final calculations" of the writer's carbon tax, but the combination of a carbon tax's component parts also constitutes a "how" (as in "steps 1-3 are _"). In fact the author never says they're an exhaustive list, and one expects a 4-¶ essay on global carbon policy to be expedient, so we don't even know if we have all the components for a "final calculation." The preceding sentence especially supports this sentence's "how" purpose by questioning the idea that an estimate is "not difficult". Examining how to do it supports that question, while indicating the size it should be would if anything confirm that it isn't difficult.

Iono thoughts?

[bearknowsthetrooth]

I agree, I think the "primary reason" the author mentions the estimates is just to give an example of an estimate that's "not difficult" to make (although inherently flawed), not to indicate that the tax "must be" a certain number to be effective. Since the first sentence of paragraph 2 states "it is not clear how high such a tax should be," I don't think the passage supports this estimate as indicative of of what a tax "must be", just something it could be.

[wgutx08]

Also agree with the previous posters. I was looking for an answer that is something like" to show that it is not possible to calculate the optimal tax size precisely". Such an answer would be in accordance with the "main gist" of the paragraph I thought.

so I didn't like A at all, because A is basically saying "to indicate the size to be effective". I don't think the size itself is the point here. The author could as well just say "one writer gave detailed estimations for coal, oil and gas taxes", without mentioning any number, and then directly go to L28: "however, the numbers he gave are not precise because...". I think it wouldn't change the passage at all.

so I picked E. But having read the comment from Patrick (thanks by the way), I totally understand now that the "how" in E is very wrong.

My final question: if the "how" in E is changed to "that", would it be a better answer than A? Many thanks in advance for your input!

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, I definitely think if (E) were changed from "how" to "that", it would be way more accurate.

Having just seen the previous posts about lingering qualms with (A) vs. (E), let me give it one more pass.

Consider removing this sentence about "one writer" from the passage entirely.

The 2nd paragraph would now say
- it's not clear how high a carbon tax should be
- seemingly, it's not hard to estimate roughly how big a tax should be to cause a certain amount of emission reduction
- but, this estimate would be ignoring important factors and making some sketchy assumptions

In short, removing that "one writer" sentence has very little effect on the overall paragraph's main point.

I think people are getting bogged down in this question because they're expanding their field of interest to the purpose of the paragraph.

But the question stem is asking for the purpose of this one sentence.

ANY time we use the phrase "for example", it's purpose is to provide an illustration of the preceding claim.

Note the layers of correspondence between the preceding claim and the correct answer choice.

"at first glance, it is not difficult to estimate roughly the size of the tax needed to effect a given level of emission reduction"
vs.
"indicate in a general way the size that a carbon tax must be for it to be effective"

So that's why (A) is correct.

In terms of the case being made for "how" in (E), one poster was saying:
As for E I'd argue that yes, we might have the "final calculations" of the writer's carbon tax, but the combination of a carbon tax's component parts also constitutes a "how" (as in "steps 1-3 are _"). In fact the author never says they're an exhaustive list, and one expects a 4-¶ essay on global carbon policy to be expedient, so we don't even know if we have all the components for a "final calculation."

I agree that we expect a 4-paragraph essay to be expedient; that's why I don't think that the author intends to show us HOW the tax was calculated.

I disagree that the component parts of the tax constitutes a "how".

Step 1 is "arbitrarily assign 41% to coal"?
Step 2 is "arbitrarily assign 33% to oil"? etc.

This is just more detail about WHAT the tax would be, not HOW the figures were calculated.

Hope this helps.

[kumsayuya]

Pretty tough question, but I think like Patrick stated before, lines 19-21 do actually contain the answer (I got this very wrong on the first attempt so I understand everyone's pain here).

Something I think that would be helpful to a lot of people is to bracket starting "At first glance..." (line 19) up until "...level of emission reduction.". Then think of this as the point that is being made, and the following "one critic" is used as the support for this point.

So basically what's being stated in lines 19-21 is that its not difficult to show how determining the size of an effective carbon tax (effective insofar as that it reduces carbon emissions). However, the issue lay elsewhere - in that other things arent taken into account, things that make using the tax difficult. In other words, the whole point is to show that determine the size of the carbon tax that would effectively reduce emissions isn't the hard part.

I THINK the issue with (E) is that it doesn't actually show how its calculated. Yes, we see the percentages on the corresponding fuel, but what does this actually tell us about HOW the carbon tax is calculated? It doesnt tell us anything. For example, look at how 33% tax is in oil. How is this calculated? We have no clue! We arent told how ANY of these percentages (AKA the carbon tax) are calculated. None of the sizes of the taxes reveal how they are determined.

[LolaC289]

Yeah I think I still agree with lhermary... I feel that (A) doesn't describe at all why the author "primarily mentions the estimates""”it describes why the writer mentions the estimates.

Unlike the writer, the author isn't "indicating" any general size he recommends for the tax, and is if anything indicating the opposite. The preceding sentence makes it clear he's mentioning the writer as a flawed example ("at first glance"), underscored by how the author attacks the estimates in the following sentences. Furthermore, the topic (1st) sentence commits the ¶ to not giving any prescriptions about tax size ("it is not clear")"”he's arguing that nobody knows the effective size, let alone he.

As for E I'd argue that yes, we might have the "final calculations" of the writer's carbon tax, but the combination of a carbon tax's component parts also constitutes a "how" (as in "steps 1-3 are _"). In fact the author never says they're an exhaustive list, and one expects a 4-¶ essay on global carbon policy to be expedient, so we don't even know if we have all the components for a "final calculation." The preceding sentence especially supports this sentence's "how" purpose by questioning the idea that an estimate is "not difficult". Examining how to do it supports that question, while indicating the size it should be would if anything confirm that it isn't difficult.

Iono thoughts?

I agree the author implies the writer's estimate as flawed by saying "at first glance". However, both (A) & (E) doesn't show this attitude here.
In (E), "show how...an effective carbon tax can be calculated" even seem to say that the writer's estimation is actually good in the author's eye. But we know from line27-31 that he doesn't think this estimation is really "effective". Thus (A), though no attitudes of the author seems to be involved, is a better answer than (E).

[VictorN529]

When the speech is about several additional aspects of explanation the correct answer, it is necessary to appeal to the notion and essence of the text above or below. So if you use https://eduzaurus.com/plagiarism-checker and see the several sides of the one phrase, you will be able to find out, why it is so. And, after all, everything is connected to the modern aspects of the necessary area.