Early in the twentieth century, Lake Konfa became very polluted. Recently fish populations have recovered as release of industrial pollutants has declined and the lake’s waters have become cleaner. Fears are now being voiced that the planned construction of an oil pipeline across the lake’s bottom might revive pollution and cause the fish population to decline again. However, a technology for
preventing leaks is being installed. Therefore, provided this technology is effective, those fears are groundless.

The argument depends on assuming which of the following?


A. Apart from development related to the pipeline, there will be no new industrial development around the lake that will create renewed pollution in its waters.

B.There is no reason to believe that the leak-preventing technology would be ineffective when installed in the pipeline in Lake Konfa.

C.The bottom of the lake does not contain toxic remnants of earlier pollution that will be stirred into the water by pipeline construction.

D.Damage to the lake’s fish populations would be the only harm that a leak of oil from the pipeline would cause.

E.The species of fish that are present in Lake Konfa
now are the same as those that were in the lake before it was affected by pollution.

OA = C <-- select to know OA
but I chose A

Can someone explain the reasoning?

Applying denial test in C will directly break the argument's conclusion that putting a cap on oil leakage will ensure no damage to fish population in the lake.

For A, this seemed out of scope to me since the fear is being voiced for threats posed by oil pipe construction to fish population. The fears are deemed groundless based on new technology which will prevent any oil leakages; new industrial construction is out of scope of this argument.

by similar token if denial test is applied to A then A will become

A. Apart from development related to the pipeline, there will be no new industrial development around the lake that will create renewed pollution in its waters.


this will also breakdown the conclusion

so how do we decide which is better option

Premise states there'll be no pollution in the lake if leakage is stopped, so your answer should concentrate in the same scope. New industrial development is outside the scope since passage deals only with oil pipe, pollution caused by it and preventive methods in place.

Good answer. Just to clarify, nzomniac, you mischaracterize the conclusion as "pollution will not revive." The correct conclusion is "the construction of the pipeline will not revive pollution." To deny A is not to undermine the argument to this conclusion.

EDIT: AS A FORUM USER SUBSEQUENTLY POINTED OUT, THE CONCLUSION IS CONDITIONAL, "IF THE TECHNOLOGY IS EFFECTIVE, THEN THE CONSTRUCTION WILL NOT REVIVE POLLUTION."

Isnt the conclusion conditional here? It says the fears are froundless only if the Technology(to provide leaks) is effective.



Its like A --> B and if B has to be true, then A has to be true.

In that case the technology has to be effective has to be assumed.

Can some clarify on this?

The conclusion of the argument is “the fears that oil pipeline construction would revive pollution and decline fish population are groundless, provided the technology for preventing leakage is effective”. For that reason, the underline assumption is that if the leakage of pipeline is prevented, there are no other causes that could lead to pollution revival or fish population decline. Therefore, the correct answer is C.

this is absolutely correct. the conclusion of the passage is contingent on an assumption that the technology will be effective; therefore, any consequences that result if the technology is not effective are completely irrelevant.
as an analogy, if someone says "if you ever say X to me again, i'll punch you in the face", we do not need to assume that you will ever say X to this person again (and we don't care what will happen if you don't).

Can you please explain why B is wrong? Is it too extreme? If you negate this statement, it says that the technology is ineffective which also makes the argument fall apart since we are assuming the conditional is true. When we see things that say "there is no reason," is that something we should steer away from in assumption and draw the conclusion questions? I know we should also steer from extreme works such as Never, Always, etc. Any more tips would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

@raquel, did you read the post directly above yours?
that post contains the answer to this question.

got it. thanks.

sweet