Q5 - A recent national study of the trash

[bernard.agrest]

Ok, so this is a main conclusion question.

Stimulus: A representative study shows that there is more paper than plastic. They each cause about the same amount of damage per weight/volume. Contrary to popular opinion, plastics actually cause less damage to the environment, then paper.

There is a "therefore" in the final sentence, this usually indicates a conclusion, so be on the lookout for something along the lines of the final sentence.

A) That's not exactly a main point, its something that needed to know.

B) Again, not a main point, its something we need to know.

C) We're arguing against this popular opinion in the stimulus, obviously the popular opinion isn't the main point.

D) Tricky,but we never discuss anything about "shifting" away, and even if we did, they cause roughly the same damage, so shifting away from paper to plastic wouldn't result in a benefit to the environment if the shift was the same. Way too many assumptions have to be made, so eliminate.

E) Correct! The main point conclusion is the "therefore" in the final sentence. Here we have a flip, instead of talking about less plastic doing harm, we're talking about more paper doing harm.

[stemmastery]

In the LR strategy guide, for the explanation its says, "This conclusion... makes a subtle but important leap in logic. Can you identify a big assumption that the conclusion makes?"

I'm not sure what the assumption is. The best I could come up with is that the author is assuming that the results of the recent national study is contrary to popular opinion (doesn't really provide any evidence for this). Is that the assumption?

[ohthatpatrick]

To clarify, you wouldn't need to worry about any assumptions to do Q5. We don't ever EVALUATE an argument for a Main Conclusion question.

But Q6 is a Strengthen question about this same stimulus, and for THAT you would think about how you could fight the conclusion.

The evidence was all about plastic vs. paper TRASH. The conclusion is about the current USE of plastic vs. paper.

That's the big leap. Just because the trash impact of plastic is smaller, that doesn't mean we
can conclude that the environmental impact of the USE of plastic is smaller.

The USE of plastic is a much wider topic: it involves how its produced (both the impact of the raw materials and the industrial manufacturing process) ... it involves how consumers behave with plastic .... it involves the likelihood that plastic actually gets discarded as trash.