Self-study
Columnist: Support The amount of acidic pollutants released into the air has decreased throughout the world over the last several decades. ██ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ █████████████ ███████ ██ ████ █████ █████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ ██████ ███████████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that we should expect an overall decrease in the negative environmental effects of acid rain. This is because the amount of acidic pollutants released into the air has decreased over the last several decades, and negative environmental effects of acid rain are caused by these pollutants.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that there haven’t been other changes over the last several decades that increase the negative environmental effects of acid rain.
24.
Each of the following, if █████ █████ ██████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ███████
a
Some ecosystems have █████████ █████████████ ██████████ ████ ██████ ███ ████████ ███████ ██ █████████ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ████████████
If anything, this might strengthen the argument by giving us reason to think at least some ecosystems have additional new protections that can reduce harm from acid rain.
Directionally wrong
Directionally wrong
Answers that, if they have any effect, do the opposite of what we want (weaken when we're trying to strengthen, or strengthen when we're trying to weaken).
b
The amount of █████████████████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███ ███ ███ █████████ ██ ██████ ██████
This indicates that certain things that protect against acid (acid-neutralizing buffers) have decreased, which would tend to increase harm from acid rain. This increase might offset the effect of decreased acidic pollutants.
c
The current decrease ██ ██████ ██████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ████ █████████ ████ ██ ████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ████████████
This suggests that the decrease in acidic pollutants will end, which implies that we should not expect harm from acid rain to decrease in the near future. Once pollutant levels stop decreasing, we would expect harm from acid rain not to decrease.
d
The effects of ████ ████ ███ ██████████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ███████
This suggests that decreased amounts of pollutants in acid rain don’t significantly impact the harm caused by acid rain. Thus, we have less reason to think that decreased acidic pollutants would lead to less harm.
e
The soils of ████ ██████████ ███████ ██ ████ ████ ████ ████ █████████ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ███████ ████ ████ ████ ██████ ███████ ████████
This suggests that protections against acid rain have decreased, which would tend to increase harm from acid rain. This increased harm might offset the benefit of decreased acidic pollutants.