Environmentalist: Efforts to attain

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct78% picked this

   Convincing most people to focus on their personal use of fossil fuels would not lead to their successfully pressuring the government into

   Why this is right

   Whenever we see the word "not" connected to the verb, in a Necessary Assumption answer choice, we can just negate the answer by removing the word "not" and see if it becomes an Objection. If we said, "convincing most people to focus on personal fossil fuel use would lead to their successfully pressuring the government into policy change that reduces carbon", then that would be a huge objection. We would essentially have just proven that the plan the author is rejecting would succeed at its goal. If we love formal logic, the original conclusion was Convince people to change ------------------> ~Goal and the premise was ~change ---> ~Goal to government policy so the missing idea is Convince people --> ~change to change to government policy

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

   78%
2. B

   Out of Scope: calculations too difficult5% picked this

   The calculations needed to determine how best to minimize one's personal use of fossil fuels are too difficult for individuals to

   The author doesn't need to assume anything about personal calculations. Even if individuals are capable of calculating how to best minimize their personal use of fossil fuels, the author's premise still remains that "who care what individuals do? It's only change on a governmental scale that will have much impact".

   5%
3. C

   Too Strong: only8% picked this

   Efforts to convince people to focus on reducing their personal use of fossil fuels have been made only by those who are not

   The author isn't committed to thinking that 100% of people who are trying to convince people to change their personal fossil fuel habits are removed from framing government policy. If we negate this, we get "at least one person who has been trying to convince people to reduce their use of fossil fuels is currently involved in framing government policy". Is that a big objection to the argument? No. It's a very, very tiny objection. It starts to move in the direction that (A) does, when negated: what if personal changes lead to government changes? But it doesn't get us anywhere near the strength of negating (A), in which we learn that "personal changes will lead to successful changing of govt policy". If an answer choices is phrased very strongly, then negating it always gives a very weak idea. That's one way to explain why we have a general aversion to strong language in Necessary Assumption answers.

   8%
4. D

   Out of Scope: easier7% picked this

   It is easier to convince the government to change its policies on carbon use than to convince people to reduce their

   The author isn't digging her heels into a comparison between which is easier. She's simply making an anti-causal claim that doing X won't lead to Y, because only Z can lead to Y. Making such a claim doesn't presume that doing X is easier than doing Z. They could be equally hard or Z could be harder. It wouldn't make any difference to the logic of "doing X won't lead to Y, because only Z can lead to Y". The author is just assuming that "doing X won't lead to Z".

   7%
5. E

   Out of Scope: concern / support Weakens2% picked this

   People who are concerned about environmental issues are more likely to support political candidates who

   The author never talked about people who are / aren't concerned with the environment. This answer is just inviting people to make their own assumptions ("if someone is going to reduce their fossil fuel usage, they must be concerned about the environment?"). The author also never discussed supporting / not supporting political candidates. This is just loosely associated with the concept of whether or not the government will change policies regarding fossil fuel usage. We could easily kill this answer because of all the out of scope stuff it's talking about, but even if we played along with those term shifts, this idea would actually weaken, if anything. It starts to make it seem like people who reduce personal fossil fuel (concerned w/ environment) would support political candidates who would then change government policy (support environmental issues).

   2%