Q9 - Because of the increases in the price

[WaltGrace1983]

This is a weaken question.

Many homeowners switched to natural gas for heating
+
They invested in equipment for natural gas heating
→
A significant switch back to oil soon = unlikely

My first thoughts were to show that the equipment of the natural gas was not too expensive and would be countered by a switch to oil that was both cheaper and didn't require as costly equipment. Either way, I am trying to tie in both (1) equipment and (2) price in order to show that oil heating is actually better, and thus a switchover might be more imminent than the author thinks.

(A) This is okay I guess. However, it doesn't offer a comparison. The price of oil heating could be free for all we know! Therefore, we need some sort of comparison. Let's not put any of our own assumptions in here!

(B) Better. However, we don't know much about the cost of oil to heat the home and we don't know much about the cost of natural gas to heat the home. We want something more specific. Either way, I am not going to totally eliminate it but I definitely feel that there is something better.

(C) This seems to show that natural gas has fallen sharply and oil has fallen sharply (we assume that 1970 levels are fairly cheap). This still doesn't offer a relative comparison though. What if the price of oil was already significantly higher than gas? This is just too weak.

(D) Very good! I eliminate (B) and (C) immediately because this answer clearly trumps them. Why? Because it shows that the equipment cost of oil = fallen and the actual cost of oil = fallen too! Now this seems like (C) if we just take this answer choice like that. However, the huge distinction between (D) and other answer choices is that it does something else: it shows a fallen oil cost relative to the price of natural gas. Thus, there isn't too much a downside to oil! It costs less to run than natural gasand the equipment doesn't seem too expensive! This is a great weakener to show that people might actually switch back to oil!

(E) We don't care about the "use of oil," we already know that it is falling. In addition, this offers no comparison to cost. Eliminate.

[ttunden]

Hello

Thanks for the detailed explanation, I appreciate it a lot. I just had a question about C.

So from my understanding of the stimulus we need to weaken the prediction that " a significant switch back to oil in the near future is unlikely. "

My prephase was that perhaps we can weaken this prediction by showing that the equipment for NG is now significantly cheaper so the switch is easier or that oil equipment is very cheap. Also, we can weaken it by showing that cost of oil has decreased substantially.

That's why I picked C. It says NG equipment price has fallen sharply and that the price of heating oil has fallen to 1970s level. I did however have D as a contender. I just wasn't sure why C is wrong.

I mean I guess now I can see how D is better but if anyone has a more detailed reason why C is wrong, I'd be more than happy to hear.

Thanks

[WaltGrace1983]

Hello
My prephase was that perhaps we can weaken this prediction by showing that the equipment for NG is now significantly cheaper so the switch is easier or that oil equipment is very cheap. Also, we can weaken it by showing that cost of oil has decreased substantially.

Unless I am mistaken, are you saying that "well if natural gas equipment is cheaper now, maybe people will just cut their losses and go with oil?" I absolutely see what you are saying here. Perhaps people will just think, "well this natural gas equipment is worthless now! Might as well get rid of it!" Someone might think that way in the real world but I don't get any indication within the stimulus that this would be an adequate reason to pick (C).

What do we know? We know that there are two things that determine cost of heating: (1) equipment; (2) method.

(C) gets us a little bit of the way there. It shows that the price of the oil itself has fallen to 1970 levels. We assume that this means that oil is cheaper than before because the stimulus states that "increases in the price of oil." However, this assumption - while probably warranted - is not absolutely proven but that doesn't seem to matter. For the purposes of this discussion, we'll just say that, yeah, the price of oil has decreased.

However, what do we know about the oil equipment? What if that went sky high?! All we know is the price of natural gas's equipment, but not oil. Not only that, but the price of natural gas's equipment has fallen! This actually makes it MORE LIKELY that people aren't switching back. Hence, this might even strengthen the argument.

(D) is much better because it shows a decrease in both oil's equipment price and actual price of oil! That is huge! Not only that, it shows that the price of heating with oil is cheaper relative to natural gas.

Does that help?

[bswise2]

Struggling with this. I'm stuck between how D is correct over C.

1970-now --> Oil use decreased by 40%

Why? 2 reasons:
1. Increases in the price of oil
2. Government policies promoting energy conservation

Because of this, many people switched to natural gas for heating, which required investing in equipment.

Because of this investment, it is unlikely that a significant switch back to oil in the near future will occur.

So the argument is relying on this idea that an investment in natural gas equipment is enough to deter a large switch back to oil. If we were to take away that "investment" element, we would weaken the prediction, no?

C- I confidently chose C during BR because C takes away (or at least severely weakens) the "investment" aspect and allows for natural gas equipment to be cheaper. (Keeping in mind that the cheapness of the equipment is not why people will continue to use it. The investment made in the equipment is why. If we were to make it so that investment no longer was required, then this supporting premise would no longer be sound). Furthermore, it also takes away reason 1 presented above for why people shifted to natural gas in the first place. With the truth of C, we are only left with one supporting premise about "government policies promoting energy conservation" to support the conclusion.

D- Just to recap: the "investment" aspect of natural gas is WHY people are committing to long term usage of it. D says that oil equipment is cheaper, so that "investment" aspect is not present for oil. Therefore, if anything, all the first part of D suggests is that there are no widespread commitments to oil, at least in the same respect as there is for natural gas. Furthermore, with the second part of D, we know that the price of heating with oil is NOW cheaper than the price of heating with natural gas. Admittedly, this does challenged reason 1 for switching from oil to natural gas. However, we don't know that the investment put into the equipment for natural gas does not exceed the current savings of switching to the now-cheaper oil over gas.
For example, if we spent $10,000 on natural gas equipment, and natural gas cost $15 per month (making this up) and, according to D, the cost of oil is now $13 per month, it will take a very long time for the switch to be worth it.

Another point on D, we have no idea how expensive the oil equipment was BEFORE this sharp decrease. The stimulus gives us no information regarding whether the investment in oil equipment was more or less than the investment in natural gas equipment. All we know is 1) oil was expensive, 2) the government wanted us to decrease our usage and 3) the investment in natural gas equipment was significant. It could very well be that the oil equipment was EVEN MORE expensive than the natural gas equipment, but that, the increase in oil price was enough to warrant a switch. So that brings me to my second issue with D...D says the cost of equipment for oil has fallen sharply...okay? Are we supposed to assume that it is now cheaper than natural gas equipment? Are we supposed to assume that this fall in equipment price is substantial enough to convince people to revert back to oil?

Thanks in advance.

[ohthatpatrick]

The author's conclusion is about people who have already bought their natural gas equipment.

He's saying, "They're unlikely to switch back to oil."

To call that into question, we need an answer that allows us to tell the story of why those people WOULD switch back to oil.

(D) does that, by saying "the price of buying the oil equipment is low (we don't know that for sure, but fallen sharply obviously goes in the direction we want) and the price of operating oil equipment is CHEAPER than that gas."

In other words: it's cheap to switch, and you'll be saving money if you use oil instead of gas.

Meanwhile (C) does not give them a reason to switch. They've already purchased their gas equipment, so the fact that gas equipment has gotten cheaper has no effect on them.

The fact that oil has gotten cheaper is SOME incentive to switch, but they'd have to worry about the cost of switching to the oil equipment.

(D) wins because it gives us info that "the cost of switching wouldn't be terrible" meanwhile, (C) doesn't speak about the cost of acquiring oil equipment

and because (D) says "oil would be CHEAPER than gas",
whereas (C) only says that "oil is cheaper than oil was at one point"