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Support Asbestos, an almost indestructible mineral once installed as building insulation, poses no health risk unless the asbestos is disturbed and asbestos fibers are released into the environment. █████ ████████ ████████ ████ █████████ ████████ ███ ███████ █████████ ████████ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████████
Argument Summary
The author argues that the government should not require that all asbestos insulation be removed. This is because asbestos poses no health risk unless it is disturbed and releases fibers into the environment, and removing asbestos from buildings would disturb it.
Analysis: Ways to Strengthen
A good way to weaken this argument would be if there were easy ways to remove asbestos without releasing fibers into the air, or while containing the fibers. It would also weaken the argument if asbestos needed to be removed for other reasons that ultimately posed a greater risk or downside than disturbing the asbestos would: for instance, if the asbestos wasn't working as insulation and causing major losses of energy that outweighed the potential risk from removing the asbestos to replace it. Thus, conversely, it would strengthen this argument if we ruled out such possibilities: i.e., if we knew that there were no easy ways to remove asbestos without releasing fibers into the environment, or if there was no other reason to remove asbestos besides the potential health risk.
23.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ █████████
a
Asbestos poses far ████ ████ ██ ██████ ████ ████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████ ████████ █████ ██ ████ ██ █████████
This doesn't strengthen. It doesn't necessarily weaken, either. Just because the risk from asbestos is smaller than the risk from these other things doesn't mean that the government should allow the risk from asbestos to be added on top of those other risks. But knowing that asbestos poses less risk than these things certainly doesn't give us an additional reason not to remove it.
b
Asbestos can pose █ ██████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████ ████████ ██████████ █████
(B) would strengthen the argument if it simply said that asbestos poses a health threat to all workers who remove it. But because it specifically says that asbestos can pose a health threat to those workers who remove it without wearing required protective gear, (B) doesn't necessarily strengthen the argument. We don't know how common it is for workers to not wear the required protective gear — maybe workers wear it all the time, and only rarely, if ever, does a worker not wear the protective gear, in which case the risk mentioned in (B) would be negligible. So, because there's a condition attached to this additional risk (not wearing the protective gear), and we don't know if that condition is met, (B) doesn't strengthen the argument.
c
Some kinds of █████████ ████ ██████████ ████ ███████ ██████ █████ ████ ██ █████ ██████
Knowing about the relative risks posed by different kinds of asbestos doesn't strengthen the argument. We don't know anything about these 'some' kinds of asbestos that pose a greater risk than others. If none of these more dangerous kinds of asbestos were ever used in building insulation — which is possible, for all we know — then they would be completely irrelevant to the argument. So (C) isn't the answer choice we're looking for.
d
Asbestos is inevitably █████████ ██ ████████ ███████████ ██ ████████ ███████████
(D) doesn't strengthen the argument. Remember what the argument is about: it's about the removal of asbestos insulation. It's not about building renovation or demolition. If the argument stated that the government should not allow building renovation or demolition for health reasons, (D) would strengthen the argument. But that isn't what the argument says. (D) might be true, and building renovation or demolition also disturbs asbestos. But since the argument is about not requiring one action (removal of asbestos) because of a specific risk, it doesn't help us to know that certain different actions (building renovation and demolition) also bring the same risk. The argument isn't about those different actions.
e
Much of the █████ ███████ ████████ ██ ██████ ██ █████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ████ ███ ██ █████████ ██████
Correct. This answer choice identifies an additional risk associated with removing asbestos insulation: once it is removed, it is left in landfills with the potential that it will be disturbed again. Because (E) effectively shows a negative consequence of following the action mentioned in the argument — the government requiring that all asbestos insulation be removed — (E) effectively strengthens the argument in favor of not pursuing that action.