Self-study
One year ago, a municipality banned dishwasher detergents containing phosphates. █████████ ████████ █████████ ████ ████ █████████ █████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ███████████ ████ ████ █████████ ████ ████ ███████████ ███████ ████████ ██ ██ █████ ████ ████ █████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████████ ███████████ █████ █████████ █████████ ████ ███ █████████ ██████████ █████████ █████ █████████ █████████████ ██ ███ ████ █████
Objective: Evaluate Questions
In Evaluate questions, the answer choices will come as questions that can usually be answered Yes/No or High/Low. For the correct answer choice, at least one of those answers will have an impact on the argument one way or another. Maybe answering “yes” to the question will weaken the argument, for example, or maybe answering “very few” to the question will strengthen.
As with strengthen and weaken questions, then, our goal in approaching the stimulus is to read critically and identify a gap between the argument’s premise(s) and conclusion(s).
Objective: Phenomenon Hypothesis
This question involves a type of causal reasoning we call “phenomenon hypothesis”: the premises lay out some observations about the world (e.g. “I saw a bunch of birds flying south.”) and the conclusion offers a potential explanation for that phenomenon (e.g. “They must be fleeing a hoard of bird-eating godzillas.”)
The phenomenon hypothesis pattern spans a bunch of question types, but whenever you see it the broad approach to anticipating the answer is similar: brainstorm some alternate explanations for the phenomenon (“maybe they’re just flying south because winter is coming”), and poke holes in the explanation presented to you (“there’s no such thing as bird-eating godzillas”).
Argument Summary
This question’s argument fits the phenomenon hypothesis pattern – it presents some facts, and a conclusion about those facts. (The “however” and “since” rhetorical cues, by the way, make identifying the conclusion straightforward.)
Context 1: Last year we banned phosphates.
Context 2: Some people got around the ban, though.
Premise: But phosphate pollution from the treatment plant is way down.
Conclusion: Some people must still have switched away from phosphates.
We undermine phenomenon hypothesis arguments by posing ourselves a riddle: in what world could all the facts be true, but the conclusion still isn’t true?
Here, our job is to imagine a world in which pollution from the treatment plant is down, but no one switched away from phosphates. So we’re mainly looking for additional factors that would explain the decrease even if no one switched detergents.
Perhaps the plant handles way less volume than it used to. Perhaps other sources of phosphate pollution dropped dramatically this year. Perhaps (spoiler alert) the plant became more efficient at treating phosphates. Noodle on this a bit before moving to the answers – it’ll help you recognize the right one when you see it.
10.
The answer to which one ██ ███ █████████ █████████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ██████████ ███ ████████ ██████
a
Why did many █████████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ███████████
Our argument is about whether people stopped using phosphates, not why they continued using phosphates. Both distinctions (whether vs. why and stopped vs. continued) make this question irrelevant to our conclusion.
b
What pollutants, if ████ ███ ███████ ██ ██████████████ ███████████ ███████████
This would be relevant if our conclusion were about phosphate-free detergents being better for the environment than phosphate detergents. So like a net effect question, where the argument assumes phosphate pollution being down means overall pollution is down.
That’s just not our conclusion, though. Our conclusion is about whether people switched detergents.
c
Were any changes ████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ███ ██████████████ ██████████ █████████ █████ ██████ ███████████
Oh yesss. Perhaps they made the plant ridiculously effective at treating phosphate pollution. That would explain why phosphate pollution from the plant is lower without relying on the idea that people switched detergents.
Alternate explanation
Alternate explanation
Weaken: Introduce or support an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
Strengthen: Helps to eliminate an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
d
Does most of ███ █████████ █████████ ██ ███ ██████████████ █████████ ████ ████ ███████ ██████████ ████ ███ █████████ █████████ ██████
This one’s a doozy, with a couple lenses on why you might have found it tempting.
1) It’s a great answer for a slightly different argument: if our conclusion were that phosphate pollution in the city has gone way down, (D) would be spot on.
But our actual conclusion is that some residents switched detergents. Even if the plant only accounts for a tiny fraction of phosphate pollution, the fact that pollution from that plant has decreased remains solid evidence that people switched detergents. Think of the plant as a representative sample – changes in a sample suggest changes in the broader environment.
2) It’s the nextdoor neighbor of a great answer: if (D) suggested the plant handled much less waste this year than it used to, it would explain the plant’s pollution decrease excellently.
It just doesn’t quite say that. (D) compares the plant to other sources of pollution within the same time period, whereas we want a comparison of the plant’s output from one to the next.
e
Did municipal officials ███ ██ ████ ██████ ████ ████████ ██████████ ██████████ ██████████ ████ ███ █████████████
This doesn’t engage with the argument’s reasoning at all. We need to undermine the idea that a decrease in the plant’s pollution means people must have switched away from phosphates.
(E) just adds unneeded backstory to the argument’s context. The stimulus establishes that some people smuggled phosphates into the city, then moves on to the actual argument. We don’t need a whole Narcos-style spinoff miniseries about how the smuggling happened.