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A study claims that the average temperature on Earth has permanently increased, because the average temperature each year for the last five years has been higher than any previous yearly average on record. ████████ ███████ ██ ██ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███████ ████████████ ████ ████ ████████████ ████ ██████ █████ ███ █████ ██████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ████████████ ██ ███████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██████████
Summary
A study concludes that the average temperature on Earth has permanently increased. Why? Because for the last five years, the average temperature has been higher than any previous average on record. However, sometimes random fluctuations in temperature can cause periods of up to ten years to have record high average temperatures.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
The last five years of record high temperatures do not necessarily indicate that the average temperature on Earth has permanently increased.
4.
Which one of the following ██ ████ ████████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████
a
All large increases ██ ███████ ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ ████████ ██ ████████ ████████
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know for a fact if all large increases have occurred in ten-year periods. The use of “all” is too strong here.
b
Five successive years ██ ██████████ ██████ ███████ ███████████ ████ ███ ██████ ███████ █ █████████ ████████ ██ ████████████
This answer is strongly supported. If there have sometimes been periods of up to ten years of record high temperatures due to random fluctuations, then five years of record high temperatures doesn’t necessarily mean that the average temperature has permanently increased.
c
Record high temperatures ███ ██ ████████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ██████
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know from the stimulus if temperatures will continue to increase. We only know that temperatures have increased over the last five years. We can’t assume that what’s true of the past will also be true of the present.
d
Random fluctuations in ███████ ███████ ███████████ █████████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ██████
This answer is anti-supported. We are told from the stimulus that random fluctuations in temperature are always occurring. It is possible that this could cause an average temperature to increase for longer than ten years.
e
The average temperature ██ █████ █████ █████████ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ██████ ███████████ ████████████
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know if random temperature fluctuations are the only cause of increases in average temperatures. There could be other things in existence that cause the average temperature to increase.