Throughout a certain nation, electricity has actually become increasingly available to people in urban areas while en...

shunhe on May 12, 2020

Hi @alliehall21,

Thanks for the question! So basically we’re told in this passage that in a nation, electricity has become more available to people in urban areas and energy production has been subsidized to help rural residents get access to electricity. Then, we’re told that even with the subsidy, many isolated rural populations have no access to electricity. The argument concludes that the energy subsidy didn’t achieve its intended purpose.

Now we’re asked for a weakness in the argument, and this is a good spot to anticipate possible answers. Notice that the fact that there are a bunch of places that don’t have electricity doesn’t mean that the stimulus doesn’t help. For example, it’s completely possible that before, there were 1000 isolated rural places that needed electricity, but now there are 500. So the energy subsidy would have helped people gain access to electricity, even though there are still “many of the most isolated rural populations” without access to electricity. This is what (E) tells us—that some people may have been helped, even though others weren’t.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.