Company spokesperson: In lieu of redesigning our plants, our company recently launched an environmental protection c...

shunhe on May 12, 2020

Hi @Maria-Marin,

Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at what the company spokesperson is saying. We’re being told that instead of redesigning plants, the company is buying and getting rid of old pollutive cars. Then, we’re told that automobiles that predate 1980 account for 30% of local air pollution, compared to 4% by plants, and so buying old cars would reduce air pollution more than redesigning old plants.

Now let’s take a look at (A), which tells us that only 1% of the automobiles driven in the local area predate 1980. This isn’t really relevant because we’re told as a fact in the stimulus that no matter how many automobiles there are actually are in the local area, they account for 30% of the total local air pollution. Doesn’t matter if that’s 1% of automobiles or 5% of automobiles, that group will still account for 30% of the total air pollution. So (A) doesn’t weaken the argument.

(C), on the other hand, does because if the company is only buying used cars that don’t function anyway, those won’t produce pollution, and so the company won’t actually be solving the problem of pollution.

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

SMA on January 21, 2023

Hi Shunhe,
I just want to say that you did a good job explaining that.

By the way, I chose E. Can you tell me why E is wrong?

SMA on January 21, 2023

I'm sorry, I meant D- I chose D. Please let me know why D is wrong.

SMA on January 21, 2023

Never mind. I see why D is wrong.