Logical Reasoning

PT13 · S4 · Q21 The town of Greenfield recently

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The town of Greenfield recently instituted a substantial supplementary tax on all households, whereby each household is taxed in proportion to the volume of the trash that it puts out for trash collectors to pick up, as measured by the number of standard-sized garbage bags put out.

Facts

There's a big new tax based on the volume of trash Greenfield residents put out for collection.

You can reduce your trash volume by taking your recyclable trash to a conveniently-located center for free.

Evaluate / Goal

This is an EXCEPT question so we're looking for an answer that is NOT supported. So, which of the answers is something that households are NOT financially incentivized to do? It's almost impossible to predict the content of an EXCEPT question correct answer, but we can think about what is and isn't incentivized. It sounds like anything that would reduce the amount of trash you put out for collection is incentivized, because the less you put out, the less you pay in taxes. Anything that wouldn't reduce your volume of trash won't save you any money, so it would not be incentivized.

21.

The supplementary tax provides some financial incentive to Greenfield households to do each of the following except:

  1. sort out recyclable trash thoroughly

    Supported

    This would reduce the volume of trash you set out for collection because it would no longer include your recyclables.

    3% picked this

  2. dump nonrecyclable trash illegally at

    Supported

    This would reduce the volume of trash you set out for collection because you'd be leaving your trash other places instead. This one can be tempting because it's reasonable to think a tax wouldn't intentionally incentivize illegal behavior. But the intent of the tax isn't actually relevant. We're only evaluating whether the tax does or does not reward the behavior.

    31% picked this

  3. compress and nest items of

    Supported

    This would reduce the volume of trash you set out for collection. Volume is a measure of how much space something takes up. Compressing items (e.g. flattening them out or balling them up small) reduces volume. Nesting items (putting a smaller item into a bigger one) also reduces volume. These practices are therefore incentivized.

    3% picked this

  4. Correct

    deliver recyclable materials to the

    Why this is right

    Sure, sending your recyclables to the center would reduce the volume of trash you set out for collection. But so would passing it to neighbors. Because both behaviors would reduce the volume of trash equally, the tax doesn't incentivize one over the other.

    Skill tested: Most Supported · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    61% picked this

  5. buy products without packaging or

    Supported

    This would reduce the volume of trash you set out for collection because it would no longer include packaging trash.

    2% picked this

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