Q14 - Geographer: Because tropical storms require heat and m

[tommywallach]

PT 65, S4, Q14 (Identify the Conclusion)

(E) is correct.

This is an identify the conclusion question, so we need to begin by (big surprise!) looking for the conclusion. It often helps to remember that the conclusion will never be a fact, but an opinion.

In this prompt, we kick it off with some facts: storms require heat and moisture, and they form over hot oceans. This leads us to what could be the conclusion: global warming could cause more frequent and intense storms. But then we get the all-important word "but," signaling a change in the argument’s direction. In other words, global warming will probably not cause frequent and intense storms. This is backed up with a final fact, that instabilities in wind flow are likely to counteract global warming’s effects on storm development.

The conclusion is the second to last sentence: "but recent research shows that this prediction [i.e. global warming will cause more bad storms] is unlikely to be borne out."

(A) This is a fact given in the first sentence, and so cannot be the conclusion.

(B) This answer choices plays with the fact that the consensus on global warming and storms has shifted. However, it mistakes the details. "Early discussions" never claimed that global warming was the only factor affecting the development of storms, only that global warming would have an impact on the development of the storms. The shift came with the realization that other factors would have a counteractive effect on storms.

(C) This one is a false reversal. Our overall conclusion is that global warming will not affect storms, because other factors will counteract it. It may seem logical that if we remove global warming, those same counteracting factors will thus push in the other direction, causing less frequent and less intense storms. However, this isn’t necessarily true. You can take a drug to counteract the effects of a poison. But if you take the drug without the poison, it won’t necessarily make you more healthy than you were before you started. A counteracting force does just that; it counteracts. We are not told what the effects of the counteracting forces would be in the absence of global warming.

(D) Another tricky one. This is absolutely in the argument, but it is not the conclusion. This is a fact used to support the main conclusion. Because instabilities in wind flow will negate the effects of global warming, global warming will not make for more bad storms.

(E) There’s our conclusion, in all its majesty. Notice that it’s a general statement (i.e. opinion), rather than a fact.