Oil company representative: We spent more money on cleaning the otters affected by our recent oil spill than has been...

Matthew-Yoo May 31, 2019

I also was wondering why it couldn't be C? Thanks.

Ravi May 31, 2019

@lisayeh and @Matthew-Yoo,

Happy to help. Let's look at (C) and (A).

(C) says, "oil company has always shown a high regard for its profits
in choosing its courses of action"

This is a tempting answer choice (it would be reasonable to think the
company cares about profits), but it's wrong for a few reasons. For
one, it's possible that the company cares about both profits as well
as the environment. Additionally, even if the oil company has always
placed a high priority on profits in the past, this doesn't tell us
about the company's motivation in this specific case, so (C) would not
allow the environmentalist's conclusion to be properly drawn. Thus, we
can get rid of it.

(A) says, "oil company cannot have more than one motive for cleaning
the otters affected by the oil spill"

(A) is exactly what we need. From the stimulus, we know that at least
some of the oil company's motivation is to help repair its public
image. (A) says there can only be a single motive, so this means that
the company only cares about its public image and not the environment.
(A) allows us to properly draw the environmentalist's conclusion, so
it's the correct answer choice.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!