Q8 - Proponents of the electric

[dan]

8. (A)
Question Type: Inference
Proponents of the electric car are expecting an "abatement" of environmental degradation, but they aren’t considering the effects of charging the batteries. Thus, the consequences of introducing electric cars will likely be worse than they expect. Answer (A) expresses this.

(B) is incorrect because we know nothing of the relative popularity of electric versus other cars. (C) is incorrect. Certainly technical problems must be solved (battery), but are we sure there aren’t other problems as well? Be careful of the word "purely."
(D) is incorrect. We know there will be emissions as a result of charging the car batteries, but do we know that the total emissions will increase? Not necessarily.
(E) is incorrect. We know that charging batteries with nuclear or coal-fired plants will cause emissions, but we don’t know if the level of emissions will be higher or lower than previous levels.


#officialexplanation

[weixiao.sun]

i don't understand why (A) is correct.

Proponents' belief is that there will be an abatement of the environmental degradation "caused by auto emissions". They may or may not have considered the pollution due to the power sources. So it cannot be said that the total effect is worse than that believed by the proponents, since they are only talking about the part of pollution caused by auto emissions.

Thanks.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

This question asks us to find what would most accurately complete the argument. Note that the blank line follows the word "thus." So, we know that the claim they are asking us to provide would serve as the conclusion of the argument.

Let's look at a simpler version of the same structural aspect to the argument.

Sarah claims that peanut butter is good for you. But Sarah failed to consider that peanut butter is high in saturated fat. Therefore, peanut butter is not as healthy as Sarah claims.

It follows a specific pattern. Someone says something, undermining evidence is provided, and a conclusion that says that the person is wrong is suggested.

Same thing in this question. Someone says that the electric car will be good for the environment, undermining evidence is offered, and then we're asked to provide the conclusion that the electric car will not be as good for the environment as some people claim.

I hope this helps clear things up...

By the way, answer choice (E) would be the most tempting of the incorrect answers - it simply goes too far. We don't want to say that there won't be any good to come from the electric car, but rather that the benefits claimed by the proponents of the electric car will not come to fruition.

[mrudula_2005]

This question asks us to find what would most accurately complete the argument. Note that the blank line follows the word "thus." So, we know that the claim they are asking us to provide would serve as the conclusion of the argument.

Let's look at a simpler version of the same structural aspect to the argument.

Sarah claims that peanut butter is good for you. But Sarah failed to consider that peanut butter is high in saturated fat. Therefore, peanut butter is not as healthy as Sarah claims.

It follows a specific pattern. Someone says something, undermining evidence is provided, and a conclusion that says that the person is wrong is suggested.

Same thing in this question. Someone says that the electric car will be good for the environment, undermining evidence is offered, and then we're asked to provide the conclusion that the electric car will not be as good for the environment as some people claim.

I hope this helps clear things up...

By the way, answer choice (E) would be the most tempting of the incorrect answers - it simply goes too far. We don't want to say that there won't be any good to come from the electric car, but rather that the benefits claimed by the proponents of the electric car will not come to fruition.

right, that would make sense if that were the case here but i think wexiaio's point is that the proponents of the electric car are not saying that "the electric car will result in an abatement of environmental degradation PERIOD". they are saying that the electric car will "result in an abatement of the environmental degradation caused by auto emissions."

So the proponents very well may have considered the horrible environmental impact coming from charging batteries from nuclear or coal-fired power plants - but that's not what they are concerned with making a point about.

they have a very limited scope. they are saying, "look, the electric car will result in an abatement of the environmental degradation CAUSED BY AUTO EMISSIONS." for all we know they can completely recognize millions of negative environmental consequences the electric car will have. so how can we conclude A (that "the electric car will have worse environmental consequences than its proponents may believe") if it's quite possible that the proponents totally believe and recognize a million environmental hazards resulting from the electric car in addition to its positive impact on abatement of auto emissions???? i did pick A as a result of POE, but I really cannot see how it needs to follow.

I would have been 10 times more confident in choosing A if it used the verb "MAY have worse environmental consequences than its proponents believe" rather than the certainty of "WILL have worse environmental consequences than its proponents believe" - How do we know what the proponents fully believe when we are only given indication as to their confidence in electric cars abating environmental degradation CAUSED BY AUTO EMISSIONS?

thanks a ton

[perng.yan]

I have exactly the SAME problem with this QUESTION!!! grr..

The reasoning in the posts above also explain why I chose (E) as the answer. Because
1) if we don't dam rivers, the electricity from chargeing the batteries will come from nuclear or coal-fired power plants, which would produce considerable environmental damage.
2) if we don't charge the batteries with nuclear or coal-fired power plants, then we need to dam rivers, which will still produce considerable environmental damage.

Thus, even if the proponents were right to assert that the environmental degradation caused by AUTO EMISSIONS would be abated.. there would be not NET reduction in the environmental degradation. Because the lessening from the auto emissions would be counter reacted with damage from the previous two.

If the damage from the dams/nuclear/coal-plants are not more damaging, then (A) would also be incorrect wouldn't it?

I would like to understand why (E) is actually an exaggeration intead of (A), which was the mentality that I had while taking the text. PLEASE HELP ME SET THIS STRAIGHT!

Thank you so much. I appreciate it!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Happy to help!

Think about it this way... the proponents believe that the electric car will lead to an abatement of the environmental degradation caused by auto emissions. That's rather complicated, but it's just saying that the electric car is going to have a positive impact on the environment. How much of an impact? We don't know.

The author is basically saying, "Yeah, but there is going to be this offset due to recharging those batteries." So, the author is not saying that the effect is going to be negative, just that it's not going to be so positive as the proponents of the electric car believe.

That leads perfectly to answer choice (A). This answer choice is not saying that the effects are going to be negative, or that the negative effects will outweigh the positive effects. It's just saying that the positive effects won't be as great as the proponents believe because they forgot to factor in the recharging of the batteries.

Answer choice (E) is taking the information too far. This has very similar language to answer choice (A) but is stronger than (A). Answer choice (A) says that the positive effects are not going to be as great as we may have believed, but answer choice (E) says that the overall effect is going to be negative. That's more than we can infer from the statements.

Does that help clear this up? I know it's tricky, and I'm happy to continue answering any questions about it!

[perng.yan]

hm.. now that you put it that way it seems strikinly simple...

i guess it's just difficult to know WHEN you're supposed to not be nit-picky over words like "caused by auto emissions" and when you do...

because if there were another more correct answer choice... LSAT could've said the (A) was wrong because it expanded the problem from "caused by auto emissions" to "environmental degradation" in general... you know what I mean?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I know exactly what you mean. it is a tough call, but for the most part, I'd recommend that in the first half of the section relax on their use of language (and only tighten it up when you have multiple answer choices). And in the second half of the section tight up on the language (and only relax when you have no answer choices).

Hopefully that will help guide you through the shifting degrees of picky you should take into the test.

[perng.yan]

ok great

[interestedintacos]

Thus, even if the proponents were right to assert that the environmental degradation caused by AUTO EMISSIONS would be abated.. there would be not NET reduction in the environmental degradation. Because the lessening from the auto emissions would be counter reacted with damage from the previous two.

That's where you went wrong. We only know that there will be "considerable damage" from the power plants. You incorrectly jumped the gun in thinking there would be no net reduction--you were assuming that the amounts would cancel each other out, but there's nothing that justifies that. This choice was designed to test that precise issue--whether people would jump the gun here.

For me the key issue here was the question type: we aren't selecting what the arguer may have wanted, which would be E, because it's the direct rebuttal to the proponents of the electric car; instead we are selecting what the argumentation actually justifies and no more. The trick was simply realizing that the argument doesn't have enough to justify E, but because A is a much weaker choice (what proponents "MAY" believe) it's more than correct, more than justifiable based on the argumentation. That's true despite the fact that the arguer would most likely want to be concluding E, and in fact would very well conclude E in a strengthen/weaken/flaw stimulus.

Perhaps by buying into the arguer's line of thought you were tempted by E, but the trick is to, again, realize that what the arguer wants or what the arguer is leading towards is not necessarily what "logically completes" an argument.

[jacquelinerachelhalpern]

I was caught up on the phrase "unless we dam more rivers". We might dam more rivers, which would mean the electric car could reduce the environmental damage. If we complete the argument with the answer choice A (the electric car will have worse environmental consequences than proponents may believe), then we are assuming that we won't dam more rivers. Any thoughts on this to help me wrap my head around it?