Q11 - Beverage company representative:

[bramon.elizabeth]

Hi, I'm having a problem seeing why C is a good answer. To me, we don't need to know that the animals will not get entangled before the rings dissolve - what if it gets stuck on their tails? They won't suffocate from that; he doesn't cite a one-to-one ratio of getting entangled --> suffocating.

I can see cases when we do need to know C, but how can I choose C when there's still such a huge gap here?

[a3friedm]

From the stimulus we know
(1) Plastic rings post a threat to wild animals, which often become entangled and suffocate
(2) Beverage companies will soon start using new plastic that disintegrates after three days exposure to sunlight

Conclusion
(3) Once the companies complete the switchover, the threat of suffocation that plastic rings pose to wild animals will be eliminated.

The conclusion is much stronger then we can infer from the premises thus there is a fairly significant gap in logic. In effect, what if plastic rings were disposed of in ways that it was not exposed to sunlight? Animals could then still suffocate from the rings. Animals could still also suffocate from the old plastic rings left in the environment. Maybe the new form of plastic has a chemical that leads to suffocation or the animals could suffocate before the three day period. I'm getting a little carried away, but the point is these are all holes in the argument.

a) Doesn't really do anything for us because we know from the stimulus it takes three days.

b) Also out of scope, we don't really care about the companies financial hardship because the premises tel us they are switching over.

c)This is exactly what we want. A way to test this would be to use the negation technique
Wild animals may become entangled in the rings before they have sufficient exposure to sunlight to disintegrate.This would directly undercut the argument that the threat of suffocation that plastic rings pose would be completely eliminated.

As for your concern between entangled and suffocate, we can accept the relationship between entangled and suffocation because the premise that explicitly states "... which often become entangled in the discarded rings and suffocate as a result"

d) The only thing our argument guarantees is the threat of suffocation so this is out of scope

e) This is opposite of what we would need. for this to be correct it would have to look something like, "any wild animal that becomes entangled in the old plastic rings will not suffocate as a result." In it's current form, it actually hurts the argument.

Hope this helped

[bbirdwell]

Nice breakdown!

Remember to really nail down the CORE!

Conclusion:
the threat of suffocation will be eliminated

Why?
the new rings will dissolve after 3 days

Potential Gaps:
What about the old rings?
* this could've been addressed by a choice but wasn't

What if animals get caught in the rings BEFORE they dissolve?
(whether or not it catches their tail or whatever - if they can be caught in the rings before the rings dissolve, then there is a THREAT)
* Answer choice C, of course, deals with this gap