1. First of all. Let's find a discrepancy or paradox.
2. There could be a couple of reasons why this happened?
3. The answer choice must relate logically to both parts of the seeming contradiction in the stimulus. All the incorrect choices explain only one side of the story or the other; in other words, they fail to resolve the paradox.
Of the four major cities in a region, City A, City B and City C all lie on the shore of Lake X. City D, however, lies on the shore of a Lake Z. All four cities use the lakes that they lie on to dump treated sewage and the citizens of all four cities also use the lakes for recreation. A scientist theorized that Lake Z, next to City D, would be cleaner than Lake X because, from the perspective of Cities A, B, and C, each would accrue all the benefits of dumping sewage in Lake X, but would spread the costs of having the sewage in the lake across the three cities. At the same time, City D would have to deal with all the costs of having the sewage in Lake Z, so the scientist concluded that City D would dump less sewage. After surveying the two lakes, however, the scientist found that the opposite was true – there was more sewage in Lake Z.
Each of the following, if true, would help explain the results found by the scientist, EXCEPT:
| Two years ago, Cities A, B and C spent a considerable sum on a sewage clean-up project in the lake next to their cities. | ||
| No monitoring systems exist that can tell exactly how much sewage is being dumped by each of the four cities. | ||
| Cities A, B, and C all know that if one of the cities overuses the lake for sewage dumping, the other two will dump even more sewage, with the consequence that the lake would be completely ruined for recreational use. | ||
| City D has been dumping sewage in Lake Z for 175 years, while the other three cities have only used Lake X for dumping for 25 years each. | ||
| City D is twice the size of the other three cities combined. |
The scientist mentioned in the stimulus expected that the lake next to City D would be less polluted because City D would have more incentive to clean up the lake. Cities A, B, and C would gain all the benefits of over-polluting, but would only take a third of the cost of their own over-pollution. However, the scientist found that the opposite was true. Your task is to find the one answer choice that does not help to explain the paradox.
Choice (B) is the best answer choice. The fact that there is no monitoring system would only strengthen the original hypothesis of the scientist that Lake X should be more polluted. If each of Cities A, B, and C knows that the other two cities cannot tell how much it is polluting, each has additional incentive to over-pollute because it will not get caught.
Choices (A) and (C) give reasons why Lake X does not have more pollution and thus help explain the paradox – in one case because of a clean-up effort, in the other case because of fear of retribution from the other cities. If either of these were true, it could explain why Lake X has less pollution than Lake Z.
Choices (D) and (E), if true, give reasons why Lake Z has more pollution than might be expected relative to Lake X. In choice (D), we learn that City D has been dumping for a much longer time. This could cause more sewage in Lake Z due to a cumulative effect. In choice (E), we learn that City D is much larger than all of the other cities combined. This could cause the higher pollution levels even if the city pollutes at a much lower rate per person.
Grocery stores first started using plastic bags to bag shopper's groceries over twenty years ago. When a shopper checked out, the cashier offered a choice of paper or plastic bag. Environmentally conscious shoppers almost always chose the paper bag (or brought their own) because of the increased environmental impact of the plastic bag. Manufacturers started making bags from recycled plastic, but the bags still pose an unresolved disposal problem because they take a thousand years to decompose. Recycling of the bags themselves is rare and unavailable in most places. Environmentally conscious consumers, however, now rarely request paper bags, although the environmental costs of plastic bags have not been resolved.
Which of the following, if true, would best explain the behavior of environmentally conscious consumers as described above?
| Consumers are reusing the bags many times themselves, thereby recycling them within the household before final disposal. | ||
| When taxed for the use of plastic bags, consumers in Cork County, Ireland, reduced their use of plastic bags by ninety per cent. | ||
| Sea turtles mistake plastic bags floating on the sea for jellyfish and eat the bags, which often kills the turtles. | ||
| A survey of the members of the nation's largest environmental organization showed that most of the members think that using paper bags has less environmental impact than using plastic bags. | ||
| The cost of plastic bags is one-fourth the cost of paper bags. |
This is an "Explain" question. It presents an apparent paradox: environmentally conscious consumers no longer ask for paper bags even though there has been no resolution to the environmental impact of the plastic bags. Your task is to find the answer choice that helps explain the seeming paradox. Choice (A) gives you an explanation for the behavior of these consumers. If environmentally conscious consumers reuse plastic bags many times, they are effectively recycling them and can rationalize the prospect that the bags will not decompose for a thousand years.
Choice (B) gives an example of an economic incentive to reduce use of plastic bags, but it does not explain why environmentally conscious consumers continue to use plastic bags.
The plight of the sea turtles only deepens the paradox, so (C) is out.
Choice (D) also deepens the paradox, because if all of these members think paper bags are friendlier to the environment, why are they accepting their groceries bagged in plastic?
Choice (E) may explain why the stores prefer to use plastic bags, but it does not explain why the consumers stopped asking for plastic.
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