Q4 - The legislature is considering

[jimmy902o]

How is answer choice D correct? The passage states "continuing to permit fishing in Eagle Bay COULD thus have grave effects on public health"... but D takes it further to say failure to enact the ban WOULD carry risks on public welfare. This seems like to far of a leap to me.

[noah]

Notice that the correct answer doesn't say that there would be grave effects, just that there'd be unacceptable risks. "Risks" leaves room for the effects not occurring.

This argument is concluding that continuing to allow fishing in the bay could have grave health effects. Why? Because the bay is very polluted, and the fish appear to be toxic.

(D) summarizes how the argument works.

(A) is out of scope - there's no discussion of negative effects on the economy.

(B) is out a moral principle and how often it's correct - out of scope!

(C) is tempting, however there's no evidence that the legislature didn't weigh the various consequences. Perhaps they did and they concluded something different.

(E) is unsupported - we don't learn that this would happen. It's nice (and tempting) to think it would, but we never learn that.

[shaynfernandez]

"...argument proceeds by presenting evidence that"
I am/was very confused about this stem. When I took this PT immediately thought this question was an inference or must be true question, because "proceeds" means to continue so I was looking for the AC that would continue this argument. Thus, I chose E because D had already been stated.
I was stunned when I found out this question was incorrect and did some research seeing that this stem is associated with "method of reasoning". Am I supposed to be addressing this stem as if it's a method question (explaining what has happened) opposed to trying to proceed with an estimation of how the argument would continue??

[noah]

"...argument proceeds by presenting evidence that"
I am/was very confused about this stem. When I took this PT immediately thought this question was an inference or must be true question, because "proceeds" means to continue so I was looking for the AC that would continue this argument. Thus, I chose E because D had already been stated.
I was stunned when I found out this question was incorrect and did some research seeing that this stem is associated with "method of reasoning". Am I supposed to be addressing this stem as if it's a method question (explaining what has happened) opposed to trying to proceed with an estimation of how the argument would continue??

You've figured out the issue. It seems like you interpreted the question stem to be "the argument should proceed by..." but instead it's actually asking how it does proceed, meaning, how is the argument built.

[layamaheshwari]

I'm still unconvinced why C is the wrong answer. Please bear with me:

The option says "opponents of the ban have failed to weigh PROPERLY..." (emphasis my own). I interpreted this as meaning that the author believed the legislators opposing the ban, concerned about the ban's economic effect, had weighed all evidence and THEN not reached the proper conclusion. They were concerned about the economic effect whereas they should be concerned about the potential grave effects on public health.

Option D, meanwhile, changes "grave effects on public health" to "unacceptable risks for the public welfare." Isn't "unacceptable" extremely harsh and too far of an assumption for us to make from "grave"? We don't know what's the line.

Would really appreciate it if someone could explain where my reasoning went wrong.

[wjoanna1129]

I'm still unconvinced why C is the wrong answer. Please bear with me:

The option says "opponents of the ban have failed to weigh PROPERLY..." (emphasis my own). I interpreted this as meaning that the author believed the legislators opposing the ban, concerned about the ban's economic effect, had weighed all evidence and THEN not reached the proper conclusion. They were concerned about the economic effect whereas they should be concerned about the potential grave effects on public health.

Option D, meanwhile, changes "grave effects on public health" to "unacceptable risks for the public welfare." Isn't "unacceptable" extremely harsh and too far of an assumption for us to make from "grave"? We don't know what's the line.

Would really appreciate it if someone could explain where my reasoning went wrong.

When I blind reviewed this question, I switched my answer from D to C for the use of "public welfare" (sometimes it is easy to be skeptical of this subtle term shift). I want to share my understanding of it with you to see whether this will work.

The main problem of answer C is that opponent of the ban in this argument has not mentioned positive effects, but rather the potential negative effects that will occur if this ban has been implemented. I think it could be quite absurd to consider the negative effect of an implementation is the positive effect of not doing so. Since if it is really beneficial to not ban, the opponent's view should be not banning it the fishing industry will prosper. Therefore, C is wrong for it's unsupported.

I hope this make sense and look forward to your thoughts on this!

[e.sterlingsmith]

This was so helpful! I also changed my answer from D to C after review and was struggling with the logic until you pointed out the fact that they didn't ever explicitly mention any positive effects in the argument. Only negative effects of implementing vs. negative effects of not implementing. Thank you!

When I blind reviewed this question, I switched my answer from D to C for the use of "public welfare" (sometimes it is easy to be skeptical of this subtle term shift). I want to share my understanding of it with you to see whether this will work.

The main problem of answer C is that opponent of the ban in this argument has not mentioned positive effects, but rather the potential negative effects that will occur if this ban has been implemented. I think it could be quite absurd to consider the negative effect of an implementation is the positive effect of not doing so. Since if it is really beneficial to not ban, the opponent's view should be not banning it the fishing industry will prosper. Therefore, C is wrong for it's unsupported.

I hope this make sense and look forward to your thoughts on this!

[yeryung.yang]

Like others, I switched my answer from D to C in the blind review and have trouble seeing why C is incorrect (and D correct). Since the argument states that "despite widespread concern over the economic effect this ban would have on the local fishing industry..." couldn't we say the economic impact of the ban (loss of jobs, depressed income, etc.) would thus be a negative impact on public welfare? More clearly, failing to enact the ban could have a positive effect in that the local fishing industry would no longer be a problem of "concern." The failure to properly weigh the positive effects (economic growth thanks to local fishing industry) vs negative effects (public health) sounds right to me, making C the more suitable answer....

Thanks in advance.

[snoopy]

Like others, I switched my answer from D to C in the blind review and have trouble seeing why C is incorrect (and D correct). Since the argument states that "despite widespread concern over the economic effect this ban would have on the local fishing industry..." couldn't we say the economic impact of the ban (loss of jobs, depressed income, etc.) would thus be a negative impact on public welfare? More clearly, failing to enact the ban could have a positive effect in that the local fishing industry would no longer be a problem of "concern." The failure to properly weigh the positive effects (economic growth thanks to local fishing industry) vs negative effects (public health) sounds right to me, making C the more suitable answer....

I also chose C, but after reviewing the above posts in this thread and re-evaluation of the argument, this is my take. I also thought that the "positive effects" in the argument were implied, but you can't extrapolate the potential "positive effects" of what happens after the bill is enacted. As wjoanna stated above, the argument doesn't state anything about positive effects, just negative effects (i.e. "concern over the economic effect," "grave effects on public health").

You can't guess that the "economic impact of the ban" would have a negative impact on public welfare simply because the question stem asked you what the method of reasoning was. Likewise, you also cannot extrapolate that "economic growth thanks to local fishing industry" will happen. The correct answer for Method of Reasoning question stems reflect what was stated in the argument only.