#8 - Older United States automobiles have been identified as

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Weaken. The correct answer choice is (C)

The argument from this stimulus, simplified, goes as follows:

Premises: Older US autos contribute disproportionately to global warming, and emissions standards will take many of these off of our roads.

Conclusion: Therefore, these cars' contribution to global warming will diminish.

The correct response to this weaken question will somehow show that either the emission standards won't be effective, or that taking these cars off of our roads will somehow fail to reduce their contribution to global warming.

Answer choice (A): This seems quite likely true, but this fact does address the question of whether emissions standards will lead these cars to contribute relatively less to global warming.

Answer choice (B): The future prospects for currently produced cars don't affect the question of whether emissions standards' reduction of older cars on US roads will lead to a relatively smaller contribution to global warming,

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice, restating one of our prephrased options discussed above. This answer provides that taking these cars off of our roads won't take them fully out of commission. If they can still be used elsewhere, they could maintain their current contributions to global warming.

Answer choice (D): It does not matter how many jurisdictions have such emissions standards; the question is whether the emission standards (wherever they are imposed) lead to less older cars on the road, and relatively less older-car-based effects on global warming.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice shifts focus to the air pollution of all cars in the US , whereas the stimulus deals only with the older cars, and only with regard to their relative contribution to global warming (not air pollution in general).

[niketown3000]

For Lesson 3HW I had trouble with Question 15

Q 15:Why was this not diagrammed as a cause and effect question? How can you tell when cause and effect is in the stimulus that you can use to weaken and it is not just a statement? Also, how is c correct?

[Nikki Siclunov]

Cause-and-effect arguments contain such key words as "caused by," "led by," "results from," etc. Every time the author proposes a causal relationship between two events or circumstances, we are dealing with causal reasoning. In short, causation is the relationship between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first.

Structurally, this pattern of reasoning can be introduced in a variety of ways. For instance, some cause and effect stimuli contain arguments in which the author tries to explain why some phenomenon occurs. Usually, the phenomenon in need of explanation (e.g. the effect) is described in the premises; the conclusion provides the explanation (e.g. the cause). For a more in-depth explanation of causal reasoning and how to weaken arguments based on causation, please refer to Lesson 3.

In the question you asked about, the argument is structured as follows:

Premise 1: Older US autos contribute disproportionately to global warming;
Premise 2: Emissions standards will take many of these cars off of our roads.

Conclusion: These cars’ contribution to global warming will diminish.

In other words, the author is arguing that the new emission standards will cause the contribution of older cars to global warming to diminish:

Cause: New emission standards

Effect: Diminished contribution of older cars to global warming.

The correct response to this weaken question will somehow show that either the emission standards won’t be effective, or that these cars will still contribute to global warming even if we take them off of our roads. In other words, you need to show that the cause will not necessarily produce the desired effect.

Answer choice (A): This seems quite likely true, but this fact does address the question of whether emissions standards will lead these cars to contribute relatively less to global warming.

Answer choice (B): The future prospects for currently produced cars don’t affect the question of whether emissions standards’ reduction of older cars on US roads will lead to a relatively smaller contribution to global warming,

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. If these cars can still be used elsewhere, then taking them off of our roads will not stop them from contributing to global warming. This would weaken the conclusion by showing that the proposed course of action will not lead to the desired effect.

Answer choice (D): It does not matter how many jurisdictions have such emissions standards; the question is whether the emission standards (wherever they are imposed) lead to less older cars on the road, and relatively less older-car-based effects on global warming.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice shifts focus to the air pollution of all cars in the US , whereas the stimulus deals only with the older cars, and only with regard to their relative contribution to global warming (not air pollution in general).

[joshmdoss95]

I got this answer really through process of elimination but my issue is that I still don't really understand why this isn't a cause and effect question. I understand that no "causal indicator words" were used, but is that really the only reason why? I mean, aren't they saying that the older cars contribution to global warming will diminish BECAUSE they the emissions standards will take them out?

[Adam Tyson]

There certainly IS some element of causation in this stimulus, joshmdoss95, and it's indicated by the word "contributes" - older cars are contributing to - causing - more global warming. The reason we don't analyze this argument using the standard causal tools, though, is because the structure of the argument is not in a standard causal form, which is where the premises provide information about correlation and the conclusion is then causal. That's what we mean when we talk about a causal argument.

Here, the author is saying something a little different, in that the causal relationship is established in a premise. We are to accept that emissions from older U.S. cars are causing global warming. Rather than "these two things are correlated, so one of them must be causing the other", we get "this thing is causing something, so if we remove that cause from one location (the U.S.) it will reduce that effect in all locations (globally)." There's the problem - the author assumes without justification that removing the cause from the U.S. will remove it from the whole planet. That's not really a causal flaw, but more of a general evidence flaw, or perhaps an Error of Composition, and to weaken the argument we need to poke a hole in that aspect of the argument. That's where answer C comes in, not by attacking the correlation-to-causation element, but the U.S.-to-globe problem.