Q2

[Nina]

I understand why C is the correct answer. But initially, i was a little bit struggling between C and D. and why is D incorrect? actually i think the critics argue that residents in that community ignore the long-term benefits of implementing the harvest limits, their lost can also be understood in monetary terms. then why is D incorrect?

Thanks a lot!

[tommywallach]

Hey Nina,

This is an inference question, so you need to be careful not to go too far out from what's been written.

(A) The critics never say that the harvest limitations would NOT affect wages or jobs, only that the positive benefits would outweigh these specific negatives.

(B) Always be nervous of the word "only" in an answer choice. The critics are only talking about one particular town, not all towns at all times. Also, they don't seem to agree that it's about public support, but an educated look at the underlying value of certain commodities.

(C) This is directly supported by the passage.

(D) Notice the generalization in the first word: "communities." The critics never talk about OTHER communities, so we don't know anything about what they'd think of harvest limitations in those communities.

(E) This says that the townspeople "implicitly" took up the economists' arguments, which means that they didn't actually know about them, but ended up agreeing with them in terms of what they actually did.

Hope that helps!

-t

[JorieB701]

“(D) Notice the generalization in the first word: "communities." The critics never talk about OTHER communities, so we don't know anything about what they'd think of harvest limitations in those communities.”

I was originally struggling with D as well but got rid of it because it said "primarily." I see now why communities is too broad of a claim but if it said "the community.." would the primarily still make this a wrong answer?

And in regards to "communities" being too broad, is it only too broad because the question stem specifically references the example of the rural community posed in the passage? If the stem just asked which can be "properly inferred based on the passage.." it would still be too broad of a claim to impose on the author, correct?

Thanks!!!

[ohthatpatrick]

"primarily" is always a red flag term that needs to be justified in the passage.

I think (D) would be wrong even if were just based on this community, since the community is protesting based on the fear of losing jobs / lowering wages.

The passage argues that the community would actually benefit economically in the long term from the harvest limitations, but the community never said "harvest limitations will ultimately cost our community money". They had a more specific concern, so I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that they misunderstood the long-term impact. It could be that they understood the long-term impact but still wanted to prevent the specific short-term impact of losing jobs / lowering wages in the timber industry.

"Communities" as a generalization is too broad to support from this passage, no matter what the question stem said.