Summarize Argument
The author concludes that if more landlords install individual electricity meters on tenant dwellings (thereby giving individuals an incentive save energy), energy will be conserved. This is because tenants who don’t have to pay for their own electricity bills don’t have a financial incentive to conserve electricity.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the financial incentive created by the indvidual electricity meters is powerful enough to cause people to actually change their behavior. The author also assumes that there aren’t other aspects of using individual electricity meters that would cause more energy use that could outweigh whatever savings are created by the individual’s own incentive to use less energy.
A
Tenants who do not have to pay their own electricity bills generally must compensate by paying more rent.
This has no clear impact on how much energy would be used. Tenants would still have an incentive to save on energy. Whether they get to pay less rent doesn’t influence how much energy they use.
B
Many initiatives have been implemented to educate people about how much money they can save through energy conservation.
This suggests people might be aware of how much they can save on energy. If anything, this strengthens the author’s argument by giving another reason to think tenants will start to save on energy use if tenants were responsible for their own electricity bills.
C
Landlords who pay for their tenants’ electricity have a strong incentive to make sure that the appliances they provide for their tenants are energy efficient.
This raises the possibility that by switching to individual meters, landlords won’t be as likely to ensure their appliances are energy-efficient. Thus, even if tenants use the appliances less often, the appliances themselves might use more energy.
D
Some tenant dwellings can only support individual electricity meters if the dwellings are rewired, which would be prohibitively expensive.
This suggests that landlords won’t be able to switch to individual meters in some buildings. The author never said this was possible everywhere. The conclusion is simply about what would result if landlords were able to make this switch.
E
Some people conserve energy for reasons that are not related to cost savings.
This suggests some people might save energy for other reasons. But this doesn’t mean that cost can’t also be a motivating factor for those people. The individual meter can still incentivize them to save on energy. And, the author never assumed every tenant will conserve energy.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The position that criminals should be punished in proportion to the severity of their crimes but that repeat offenders should receive harsher sentences is flawed. It wrongly assumes that past misdeeds are relevant to the seriousness of an offense. This introduces a vague standard that would make almost every other consideration relevant, making it impossible to apply this proportional principle.
Identify Argument Part
This is a undesirable consequence of believing the argument that the author is refuting.
A
It is a statement the argument provides grounds to accept and from which the overall conclusion is inferred.
The statement is not a premise. It does not support any other claim in the stimulus. It is an undesirable consequence that would result from believing the argument that the author rejects.
B
It is a statement inferred from a position the argument seeks to defend.
The author does not want to defend this statement. The author strongly disagrees with this statement.
C
It is the overall conclusion in favor of which the argument offers evidence.
This is not the main conclusion of the argument. The author does not believe in the truth of this statement, so it cannot be the main conclusion.
D
It is an allegedly untenable consequence of a view rejected in the argument’s overall conclusion.
This is an accurate description of the statement. The author argues that considering remote actions (an untenable consequence) is a result of the rejected view that repeat offenders should receive harsher punishments.
E
It is a premise offered in support of an intermediate conclusion of the argument.
This statement is not a premise and there is no sub-conclusion for it to support.