Q8 - Energy analyst: During this record-breaking

[timmydoeslsat]

I had it down to A and B in this resolve the paradox question.

Paradox is:

Why would blackouts occur even after the residents heeded the voluntarily cut back of AC use.

I liked both A and B.

A seems to resolve the discrepancy by letting us know that even though the residents cut back on AC use, AC is not the only significant drain. Thus, it is reasonable to see why their lack of use of AC would not necessarily stop the blackouts.

B seems to resolve the paradox because if it is true that most of the air conditioning in the region is used for businesses and factories, then simply cutting back at resident homes may not be enough to stop the blackouts at times.

Same with answer choice (A), the cut back of AC usage at home may not stop the blackouts necessarily because AC is not the only significant drain.

Thoughts on this?

[jcl2153]

Use of air-conditioning may not be the only significant drain on the electrical system in the area, but we have reason to believe that increased use air-conditioning is the only significant additional drain on the electrical system that is caused by the heat wave and therefore causing blackouts. (The stimulus tells us that "during this record-breaking heat wave, air conditioner use has overloaded the region's electrical power grid.") Other uses of electricity may constitute significant drains on the electrical system in the area, but these significant drains may be simply business as usual and therefore usages that the electrical system is capable of handling. It's the increased use of air-conditioning triggered by the record-breaking heat wave that has tipped the scale from what the system can manage to what it cannot - not the other (possibly significant) usages of electricity.

That's just how I understood it, though - I could be way off base.

[ohthatpatrick]

I completely sympathize with the original poster's "down to 2" conundrum and agree with the respondent's justification for (B).

The heat-wave-induced AC usage is definitely portrayed as THE cause, not A cause.

Well played.

[vik]

Heat-induced AC usage is a cause, not the cause.

A is wrong because, while a significant drain, it needs the further assumption that it is sufficient to cause blackouts in summer.

[ohthatpatrick]

We're just splitting hairs here, basically, but such is the nature of LSAT.

I agree, the stimulus does not give wording to justify inferring that AC use is the only cause of blackouts.

I was agreeing with the previous poster that AC use is "the only" cause of blackouts we know about from the stimulus.

This is similar to how you're justifying getting rid of (A). There may be other significant drains on the grid, but we can't assume they're sufficient to cause an overload. "The only" thing we know from the stimulus that is sufficient to cause an overload is the AC usage.

So AC usage is "the only cause ... we can justify".

[rostov]

A is wrong because the stimulus says that the blackouts will probably proceed UNLESS the heat waves abate. A doesn't explain why this would be so if the heat waves abate, while B does.

[samuelfbaron]

How come (D) can't be correct?

[sumukh09]

How come (D) can't be correct?

D goes against a premise - specifically that the residents will heed the request of cutting back. D says they're not likely to cut back. But the argument already grants for us that even if they do cut back, the blackouts will still probably occur; so it doesn't matter that they're unlikely to cut back.

[tzyc]

Still confused between (A) and (B)...
We may not be able to infer there are other significant causes besides AC from the stimulus, but this is not a infer question, this is an explain the discrepancy question so isn't it OK to say there could be another cause and that's why blackouts will probably occur again?
I chose (A) originally but not sure about (B)...is it because most AC is used in those places, the use would not be reduced that much??
For explain the discrepancy questions, we can add info to make it work? (Diff from St/Weak question?)
What did I miss here?

Thank you

[ohthatpatrick]

Str/Weak and Explain questions all permit us to add new info. I'm not sure what you were suggesting about Str/Weak. All those answer choices contain new info.

Any time a question stem is structured,
"Which one of the following, if true, ..."
then we are adding new info.

We're trying to figure out why blackouts will probably occur as long as the heat wave continues, even if residents cut back on using their AC.

(A) is very tempting, but it has two problems
1. Whatever these other drains on the system are, it seems from the wording of the stimulus that they are normally NOT enough to overload the system. By saying that AC use has overloaded the grid, the information implies that if we didn't have AC use, we wouldn't have an overloaded grid.

So there might be many other drains of energy, but without the extra AC use during the heat wave, the grid would normally handle it fine.

2. The final sentence is specifically tying continued blackouts to a continued heat wave. We don't know, from (A), whether these other drains on the electrical system have anything to do with going or up or down when it's hot outside. So we have no justification for thinking that "the longer the heat wave goes, the more these other significant drains on the electrical system will be an issue".

Meanwhile, (B) is talking about AC use, so we don't have to worry about #1 (because we KNOW that too much AC use can cause a blackout) and we don't have to worry about #2 (because we KNOW that AC use is something that goes up or down based on how hot it is outside).

Here's how (B) works:
We know that AC use overloaded the system.

What if 10% of that comes from residents and 90% of that comes from businesses and factories? Getting the residents to turn down their AC is only going to have a minimal effect on the overall citywide use of AC.

That's how (B) explains the paradox. It's saying that getting residents to turn down their AC is barely addressing the AC usage, because most AC usage is not done by residents. Thus, the problem of too much AC usage for the electrical system to handle would likely persist as long as the heat wave does.

Hope this helps.

[tzyc]

Thank you for the reply!
When I said "add info" I meant doing additional work...such as add assumtions and make the answer choice sounds correct.
For those questions we shouldn't do that right? (St/Weaken and explain the discrepancy Qs etc...)

Thank you

[ohthatpatrick]

Yes, you're correct, we shouldn't have to add much of a story to make an answer "work" for us.

For a long time I never noticed this, but at the beginning of any LR section it says, "You should not make assumptions that are by commonsense standards implausible, superfluous, or incompatible with the passage".

So they are implying there that we CAN make assumptions that are by commonsense standards plausible, necessary, and compatible.

For this question, to tell ourselves that the other drains on the system would be enough to cause blackouts, we are making an assumption that could probably be considered "superfluous".

For some Str/Weak questions, you'll definitely be called upon to make a common sense assumption. If you check out PT26, S2, Q12, the correct answer expects us to make the common sense assumption that "high levels of environmental pollution" could possibly raise the incidence of cancer in a certain country. It never spells out that idea, but that's what they expect us to think.

So it's sometimes a frustrating game with Str/Weak/Explain to ask yourself, "Am I telling myself a simple common sense story or am I adding too much to get there?" Unfortunately, there's no perfect answer for that. We just try to pick whatever answer that works that seems to need the LEAST additional info/assumptions.

[JorieB701]

I synthesized some of the earlier responses regarding why answer choice A is wrong. I’ll put it here in case others might benefit from it as well.

The question being asked is, “why might it be that if the heat wave continues, blackouts are still likely to occur, even if residents cut back on their air conditioner use?” So, why might this not be enough to stave off blackouts?

The stimulus says, during the record breaking heat wave, air conditioner use has overloaded the region’s electrical power grid. That is a premise that we have to accept as fact. It is necessarily true that the air conditioning is what did the overloading.

If A is true, and air conditioning is not the only significant drain on the electrical system in the area, we still do not have an answer to our question. Because as noted in previous responses, we have no reason to believe that these other factors are different under heat wave conditions than without. There’s clearly something different happening here. It’s super-hot out, and now all of a sudden the power grid is overloaded and we’ve identified a cause (air conditioners are being run throughout the region). Knowing that there are other drains but knowing nothing about if their usage is similarly affected by the heat wave (or even that their usage and therefore the extent to which they are a drain on the power grid, is variable at all), makes their existence irrelevant to answering the seeming paradox. It might be an answer to a question about why or how the grid could be overloaded generally, but not one that encompasses the entire scope of what is "surprising" or "unexpected" in light of the circumstances surrounding this specific situation.

[YudeS218]

I still don' understand why D is wrong.

the definition of heed is that "to pay careful attention to sb's advice or warning", so it doesn't necessarily mean that residents will cut back their use of air conditioner.

So I know B is right, but why D is wrong?