It is repeatedly claimed that the dumping of nuclear waste poses no threat to people living nearby. If this claim cou...

Victoria on April 26, 2021

Hi @AllisonJ,

Happy to help!

We are looking for the answer choice which would weaken the argument.

The passage concludes that claims that the dumping of nuclear waste poses no threat to people living nearby must be at least questionable.

Why? Because, if the claim were certain, then there would be no reason not to locate dumping sites in areas with dense populations. However, current policy results in dumping of nuclear waste only in more sparsely populated areas.

To weaken this argument, we are looking for an answer choice which provides a good reason for dumping nuclear waste in sparsely populated areas that is not related to safety. This would mean that the claim that dumping nuclear waste poses no threat to people living nearby could be true as it would present an alternate reason why this waste is only dumped in more sparsely populated areas.

Answer choice (C) does this by telling us that dumping nuclear waste in sparsely populated areas poses fewer economic and bureaucratic problems. Therefore, it is entirely possible that it would be safe to dump nuclear waste in densely populated areas, but it would be more pragmatic to dump it in sparsely populated regions. This weakens the argument by providing us with an alternate reason for the policy.

Answer choices (A) and (B) both strengthen the argument because they outline safety-related scenarios which support dumping nuclear waste only in sparsely populated areas. These answer choices suggest that the stimulus is correct i.e. the policy of dumping nuclear waste only in sparsely populated areas is, at least partly, a result of safety concerns.

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions.

AllisonJ on May 28, 2021

Thank you this does.