Self-study
Support Problems caused by the leaching of pollutants from dumps and landfills are worst in countries with an annual per capita economic output of $4,000 to $5,000, and less severe for considerably poorer and considerably richer countries. ████ ██ ██ ███████ █████████ ████████ ████████ ██████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ █ █████████ ██████████ ███████████ ███ ████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ██████████ ███████████ █████████ ████████ █████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████████ ██████████ ████████ ██████ ██ ████ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ██████ ███ ██████ ████████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ █████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ██████
Summary
Over the next few years, pollutant leaching in Country X will probably cause fewer problems. Why? Because pollutant leaching causes the most problems for countries in the same GDP range as Country X. This is because poorer, less-developed countries generate fewer pollutants, while richer, more-developed countries are more able to prevent pollution problems.
Notable Assumptions
For Country X’s pollutant problems to decrease, based on the premises it would have to change its level of development. There’s no indication that countries even can decrease their level of development so much that they stop producing pollutants, so the argument must assume that Country X will increase its development level within the next few years.
13.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ ████████
a
Within the next ███ ██████ ███████ █ ████ ██████ █ ██████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████████
The argument never mentions fines, and definitely doesn’t depend on them. There’s also no reason for us to think that this is the only possible way for Country X to reduce its level of pollution problems.
b
Countries surrounding Country █ ████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ ████ █████ █████████ ███████ ████ ███ ███ ███ ██████
This is irrelevant. The argument isn’t concerned with countries surrounding Country X, and in fact specifically talks about pollutants leaching from dumps and landfills, rather than air and water pollution generally.
c
Industrial development in ███████ █ ████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ██████
In other words, Country X will move out of the “danger zone” of development where it’s producing pollutants but can’t yet deal with them. If we were to negate this, and assume instead that Country X wouldn’t increase development, the argument would fall apart.
d
Country X will █████ ███ ███████ ██ █████████████████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ██████
First, the argument strongly implies that Country X has already begun the process of industrial development. Second, we know that starting industrialization increases pollution problems. So this just contradicts the argument.
e
No other country ████ █ ███████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███████████ ███ █████████ ████████ ████ ███ ██ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ██
The argument is just saying that Country X will reduce its level of pollution problems. How the severity of those problems compares to other countries is irrelevant.