Advocate: Millions of plastic shopping bags are discarded every day in

Question

Advocate: Millions of plastic shopping bags are discarded every day in the United States. Plastic bags present a problem for the environment because they do not readily decompose, but will remain intact for thousands of years. Policy makers agree that the best solution to the problem is to convince people to bring their own shopping bags so that they do not need disposable plastic bags. Therefore, the U.S. government should implement a tax on disposable plastic bags because this will have the desired effect of dramatically decreasing the number of plastic bags discarded each day in the United States.

Which of the following provides the strongest reason to believe that the plan to levy a tax on disposable plastic bags will be successful in greatly reducing the number of plastic bags being discarded?

(A) A similar tax in several European countries resulted in a 90% decrease in the number of plastic bags used by consumers each year.

(B) Current incentives, such as crediting customers 5 or 10 cents for each reusable bag, have resulted in only a small decrease in the number of plastic bags discarded.

(C) Some customers are very concerned about the environmental impacts of plastic bags and will bring reusable bags without any financial incentive.

(D) The bill has substantial support with the Congressional delegations of many states and with the current administration.

(E) The bill could be implemented and the tax collected using a very simple addition to the programming of electronic cash registers.

I am not satisfied with the official answer. Please provide explanation for the choice you chose.
Thanks

VerbalBot · Answer

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Makesh89 · Answer

Inorder for A to be right we are making one major assumption that people In European countries will behave the same way as do the American people, or rather the conditions in USA are the same conditions in Europe. In the absence of that C will be the correct answer.

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Makesh89 · Answer

Inorder for A to be right we are making one major assumption that people In European countries will behave the same way as do the American people, or rather the conditions in USA are the same conditions in Europe. In the absence of that C will be the correct answer.

Posted from my mobile device

Posted from my mobile device

sahilvijay · Answer

Thanks man. .

gmatexam439 · Answer

Hi,

I wrote that statement on 8 May, while my second explanation was written on 2 Nov. While attempting the question on 2 Nov I didn't even remember that I had solved this particular problem earlier. I understood the nuances with time and hence could answer the question correctly later. 
--In fact, I noticed my above doubt that you have quoted in red, when you posted your previous post.

As for option B, it can't strengthen the argument. There are 2 reasons for that:
1. Current incentives are out of scope as we are discussing about a plan yet to be implemented.
2. Even if you think that it is in the scope of argument - that I would say you are overthinking - it would weaken the argument. If incentives in past didn't change the nature of the people, there is no guarantee that the future plan will be successful.

Also, you can interpret option B the way you have stated. Thus, you can say that as per the understanding in my point 2 above we can have a negative outcome or as per the understanding stated by you we can have a positive outcome. Since, we can interpret both + and - from the same statement; it can never be a good strengthener.

Albeit, I would say again, option B is out of scope.

My suggestion: Don't overthink on a single option. You should evaluate only the events those are being talked about in the argument.

Again I would say that "you are always searching for 4 wrong choices". Keep that in mind.

I hope this helps !!

sahilvijay · Answer

""I have a doubt with the option "B" and "A". "B" states that financial incentives have not worked as planned; which is eliminating any alternate solution therefore it strengthens the argument. While option "A" states that just because some pattern occurred in other country the same will happen in the given country; which is totally absurd. We can't compare the shopping habits of a person in India with those of a person in Italy""

you wrote this para ,which is mentioned above

Kindly explain one more thing- Just like we are assuming a possibility -> if some other country implemented the plan and that plan worked -> this plan will work here.
Cant we think think this way-> 
B) Current incentives, such as crediting customers 5 or 10 cents for each reusable bag, have resulted in only a small decrease in the number of plastic bags discarded.
So may be we have seen a small decrease in giving credit of 5 cents ( customer are not bothered by credit may be they will be bothered when they will be debited with tax-> CHANCES are there => what if-- by taxing the plan will succeed....=> 
Explain??

gmatexam439 · Answer

Hi  sahilvijay ,

This is not a written rule that analogies are wrong.

Out of 5 options which ever strengthens or weakens the most is the correct answer.

In our question at hand no other option strengthens the argument better than the OA.

Similarly in the question, whose link you posted, the option D is better choice than E because that closes the gap in the argument.

Never assume anything while solving the questions. Always look at all the 5 choices. Always remember that you are looking for 4 wrong choices.

If you read such a rule somewhere i suggest you to scrap that source.

I hope it helped!!

sahilvijay · Answer

HI gmatexam439 I have a small doubt , In option A we used analogy of some other country that if some plan worked there , it may work here. Can we use this analogy - I ignored this only because i solved one assumption ques , which i got correct ,and ignored option E in that ques because it was talking about similar cities and similar legislation etc,... have a look and kindly clear my doubt - i was in impression that for strengthen IF SOME PLAN HAS WORKED IN SOME PLACE - IT IS NOT NECESSARY it will work here . Similarly - as we know If some data is true for last 10 years - it may not be true for next upcoming years. Kindly explain... here is the link - https://gmatclub.com/forum/ten-years-ag ... 99609.html

gmatexam439 · Answer

Advocate: Millions of plastic shopping bags are discarded every day in the United States. Plastic bags present a problem for the environment because they do not readily decompose, but will remain intact for thousands of years. Policy makers agree that the best solution to the problem is to convince people to bring their own shopping bags so that they do not need disposable plastic bags. Therefore, the U.S. government should implement a tax on disposable plastic bags because this will have the desired effect of dramatically decreasing the number of plastic bags discarded each day in the United States.

Which of the following provides the strongest reason to believe that the plan to levy a tax on disposable plastic bags will be successful in greatly reducing the number of plastic bags being discarded?

(A) A similar tax in several European countries resulted in a 90% decrease in the number of plastic bags used by consumers each year. - Correct. If this move has worked in several countries, then it might prove to be beneficial in the talked about country also.

(B) Current incentives, such as crediting customers 5 or 10 cents for each reusable bag, have resulted in only a small decrease in the number of plastic bags discarded. - We are discussing the implementation of the new tax and not about the old tax.

(C) Some customers are very concerned about the environmental impacts of plastic bags and will bring reusable bags without any financial incentive. - Such people will always be there. We need to concentrate on the majority.

(D) The bill has substantial support with the Congressional delegations of many states and with the current administration. -We are not worried about the support.  We need to focus on the reduction in the number of plastic bags because of the implementation of the bill.

(E) The bill could be implemented and the tax collected using a very simple addition to the programming of electronic cash registers. - We are not worried about the collection of tax.

pra1785 · Answer

I have come across CR questions in the past where options such as A would be eliminated stating that just because it worked in some country doesn't mean it will work with the country mentioned in the argument. Which is why I eliminated option A.

gmatexam439 · Answer

I have a doubt with the option "B" and "A". "B" states that financial incentives have not worked as planned; which is eliminating any alternate solution therefore it strengthens the argument. While option "A" states that just because some pattern occurred in other country the same will happen in the given country; which is totally absurd. We can't compare the shopping habits of a person in India with those of a person in Italy.

BillyZ · Answer

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

Correct Answer:  A

The correct answer will provide direct support for the claim that the tax on disposable bags will be successful in reducing the number of plastic bags discarded. Choice A is the correct answer because it provides an analogous situation where the tax was successful in reducing the number of plastic bags discarded. When the tax was implemented in Europe, it achieved the desired result so is likely that the same plan will succeed in the United States. The other choices are irrelevant or address aspects other than the probable success of the plan. Choices B and C are not central to the argument as they discuss the effectiveness of the current programs in the United States rather than the proposed tax. Choice D does not speak to the probable success of plan, only to the likelihood of it being adopted. Choice E indicates that the plan is feasible, but again this is different from the plan having the intended result.

RK84 · Answer

If I follow the reasoning given by you on D & E, I can counter option A also in the same way. "Anything which has worked in one country will work in another country" The logic behind this statement is not convincing <consumerism in different markets is different and is based on cultural influences). Many official questions I have practiced before, have used the same reasoning to discard several wrong answers in many cases. I do not wish to argue but I think if something is logically not sound we should admit it rather than defending the source. 
But I really appreciate your response. I will try to align my thinking the GMAT way , for such questions also.

sayantanc2k · Answer

A friendly advice: an official question is never poor. In order to have a high score, one must align his / her thinking in line with the official questions, i.e.  try to understand why  an option is correct or wrong, rather than  decide whether  an answer is correct or wrong.

A: If a plan has already been successful, there are good chances that it would again be successful. This question is not about conclusion, but about support. If it were an inference type question, the answer would be wrong.

D: Support from a group of people who are not experts in the field does not help determine whether the plan will be effective. If instead of "congress delegations", something like "tax implementation experts" or "social psychology experts" (any group of experts who are capable of determining whether implementation of tax would reduce the usage) were mentioned then the answer would be correct.

E: It does not matter how difficult it is to implement the plan. The argument is about once the plan is implemented, whether it would be effective.

RK84 · Answer

This is a very poor question. If option A can be justified then Option D & E can also be justified by saying that in Option D, the bill can be easily converted into a law and people will have no choice . Similarly in E, if there is a simple effort towards operational costs, retailers will also support the cause.

T700ISB · Answer

Though I selected A, I'm not fully convinced.
Just because levying tax in Europe has led to s 90% drop in the disposal of plastic bags does NOT mean that the same will necessarily hold true for the United States.

Out of the lot, For the lack of a better choice, I would go with A.

abhishekdadarwal2009 · Answer

A)A similar tax in several European countries resulted in a 90% decrease in the number of plastic bags used by consumers each year. 
 This choice is the best choice through process of elimination and provides an evidence of the success of a similar plan by providing analogy.

B)Current incentives, such as crediting customers 5 or 10 cents for each reusable bag, have resulted in only a small decrease in the number of plastic bags discarded. 
 out of scope and alos does not impact the feasibilty of the plan

C)Some customers are very concerned about the environmental impacts of plastic bags and will bring reusable bags without any financial incentive. 
 the number of customers is limited and are refered as 'some',which does not provide the clear picture of how many customers are concern so not good answer

D)The bill has substantial support with the Congressional delegations of many states and with the current administration. 
 Out of scope since the support is for the passing of bill not the successfull implementation of the bill.

E)The bill could be implemented and the tax collected using a very simple addition to the programming of electronic cash registers. 
 the ease of implementation of the bill does not garentee the success thereofre not a good choice.

vijaisingh2001 · Answer

plan to levy a tax on disposable plastic bags will be successful in greatly reducing the number of plastic bags being discarded?

We need to find an evidence or support which proves that plan to tax will be successful, choice A gives an example that similar plan was successful in Europe

CHOICE C - has nothing to do with plan - some( 1- 100) are self-motivated and concerned to reduce the environmental damage, whether any plan exist or doesn't exist is not going to make any change in their motivation level

OreoShake · Answer

How does A have any bearing how this plan in the US will work out? generally all ACs using examples of other countries, similar events elsewhere etc are wrong in GMAT.

For me there was no correct answer in this question.

sleepynut · Answer

Hi all,
in my 2 cents,option C may even weaken the argument.
We are given that now millions of plastic shopping bags are discarded daily.Saying that "some customers are very concerned about the environmental impacts of plastic bags and will bring reusable bags without any financial incentive" means even some are already concerned about the environment the number of discard plastic is high;hence,the new policy may not work.

+1 A
Thanks

Advocate: Millions of plastic shopping bags are discarded every day in

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Advocate: Millions of plastic shopping bags are discarded every day in

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