Self-study
To allay public concern about chemicals that are leaking into a river from a chemical company's long-established dump, a company representative said, "Federal law requires that every new chemical be tested for safety before it is put onto the market. ████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ███ █████████ ███████ ██ █████ ██████████████ █████████ ███ ████████
Summarize Argument
The representative comes to the implied conclusion that the public need not be concerned about chemicals leaking into the river from the company’s plant. In support, the representative states that every new chemical must legally be tested for safety before being sold, and that this requirement is analogous to the testing required for new pharmaceuticals.
Notable Assumptions
The representative assumes that because pharmaceuticals are tested for their safety when consumed, industrial chemicals are also tested at this standard. But maybe chemical testing uses a different standard of “safety,” for example merely being safe to work with.
The representative also assumes that the chemical company’s dump only contains chemicals that were tested to the current standard. Maybe standards have changed, or maybe not all suppliers respect the law.
9.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ ████████████████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ ███ ██ █████████ █████ ███ █████
a
When pharmaceutical substances ███ ██████ ███ ██████ ████████ ██ ███████ █████████████ █ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███████████ ██████████ ██████████ ████ ███ ███████
This does not weaken the argument, because it doesn’t give us any reason to doubt the representative’s implied conclusion. Whether the testing delays the entry of substances onto the market tells us nothing about chemical safety standards.
b
Leakage from the ████ ███ ████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ███████
This does not weaken the argument. The representative says that the chemicals are safe due to testing requirements, and like (D), how long they’ve been leaking has no relevance to that claim.
c
Before the federal ███ █████████ ███████ ██ █████████████████ █████████ ████ ████ ██████ █████████ █████ ████ ██████ ████ █████████ █████ █████████████ ████ ██ ████ ██████████
This weakens the argument by casting doubt on whether all the chemicals in the company’s “long-established” dump would actually meet current safety requirements. This claim makes it totally possible that there are many dangerous untested chemicals in the dump.
d
The concentration of ███ █████████ ███████ ████ ███ █████ ██ ████████ █████ ██ █████████ ███ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ ██████
This does not weaken the argument, because like (B), the amount of likely exposure isn’t really the issue here. The representative’s claim is that the chemicals are safe, not that they’re potentially unsafe but diluted. This doesn’t address the chemicals’ actual safety.
e
The water in ███ █████ ██ █████ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ████ █ ██████ ██ ██████ ████████████ █████████
This does not weaken the argument. Whether or not the river water is murky, or what other substances are in the river, is totally irrelevant to the issue of chemical safety. This just does not affect the argument at all.