A conference was held to address environmental threats to the North Sea. Even if you don't know the meaning of the word "effluent", from the context you should be able to infer that it is some type of waste that could potentially harm the sea.
The countries participating in the conference favor uniform controls (or restrictions) on the quality of those effluents. The issue is that they aren't sure which sources of effluents actually cause environmental damage. As a result, they might end up restricting sources that DON'T actually cause any environmental damage. Such a restriction would be excessive, since it would involve controlling substances that are not actually threats to the sea. If they could somehow only control the HARMFUL effluents, then the controls could not be considered excessively restrictive.
With that in mind, in order to avoid excessively restrictive controls, it must be shown that...
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(A) any uniform controls that are adopted are likely to be implemented without delay
We aren't concerned with the
timing of the controls. Rather, we care about the controls' being excessively
restrictive. The schedule of the controls has nothing to do with how restrictive they are, so (A) can be eliminated.
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(B) any substance to be made subject to controls can actually cause environmental damage
As described above, controls on substances that are not actually harmful would be considered excessive. If we can show that any substance subject to the controls actually CAN cause environmental damage, then we would show that we are not restricting harmless substances. This would eliminate the concern about excessively restrictive controls, so choice (B) looks pretty good.
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(C) the countries favoring uniform controls are those generating the largest quantities of effluents
The countries generating the largest quantities of effluents may NOT favor the controls. So what? Whether those countries like the controls doesn't tell us whether the controls restrict harmless substances. Thus, regardless of whether this statement is true, the controls may or may not be excessively restrictive. Eliminate (C).
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(D) all of any given pollutant that is to be controlled actually reaches the North Sea at present
The word "all" should be a red flag. What if only MOST or SOME of a given pollutant actually reaches the North Sea? Would controlling that substance be excessively restrictive just because SOME of it doesn't reach the North Sea? Of course not. Furthermore, if an effluent is known to be an environmental threat, it might make sense to implement controls to ensure it doesn't harm the North Sea
in the future. Eliminate (D).
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(E) environmental damage already inflicted on the North Sea is reversible
Even if the present damage is irreversible, we would still want to limit FURTHER damage by implementing the controls. Controls on harmful substances would not be excessively restrictive even if they only succeed in keeping the damage at the current level. Choice (E) is thus irrelevant and can be eliminated.
(B) is the best answer.
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