Q23 - Environmentalist: Efforts to attain an overall

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Honestly, I'm not sure what's premise and conclusion here. I could make a solid case for either the first or last sentence being the conclusion. However, the crux of the argument is that personal changes aren't enough, and the government will need to step in.

Answer Anticipation:
The answer choice will state that there is a divide between personal actions and government policies.

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) This aligns, generally, with what I was looking for. Negating it - personal use can lead to policies being adopted - kills the argument. However, since I'm still not 100% on the argument, I'm not picking this yet (I will after reading through the rest of the answers).

(B) Degree/too specific. It doesn't need to be hard to figure out how to personally minimize carbon since the argument already tells us it won't be enough. Even if we could do these calculations, the argumen still stands.

(C) Out of scope/temporal. It doesn't matter who the individuals are who are pushing the policy. Also, it brings up people who "are not currently" making policy. They may or may not have been in the past, and without that information, we can't analyze this answer.

(D) Out of scope. The argument talks about effectiveness, not ease.

(E) Tempting. I'd compare this and (A). However, this answer is about people who are concerned, not people who change their behavior, so it's out of scope. While you could argue that concerned people are the ones most likely to change their behavior, I'd argue that's not true - maybe there's a financial incentive to change behavior that entices more people than an environmental one.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Don't get too bogged down in the stimulus. If you're a little fuzzy, but you know the general issue, head to the answer choices.

#officialexplanation

[ThaoN810]

I wrongly chose (C) so as a review, I'd like to explain why (C) has an appeal but ultimately should be rejected. If you negate (C), it becomes "Some people involved in framing government policy have made efforts to convinced people to focus on reducing personal use of fossil fuels." Even if some government policy makers are making the convincing efforts, they might not be making them by changing government policies, so this doesn't destroy the argument.