imSKR
Hi
AndrewN sir
Quote:
(E) Consumers have increased the portion of paper products that they recycle after using.
Why E can not be answer?
In other words, portion of recycle paper produts has increased, it indicates as consumers increase the recycling, the companies can recycle more and hence manufacturers reduce cutting from timber etc.
Does not it align with argument?
please suggest.
Hello,
imSKR. I took my time on this one—a little over three minutes, in fact—perhaps because I looked at the difficulty level first and wanted to be extra careful not to stumble into a trap, or perhaps because I was mentally fatigued after another day of work. I did choose (A) in the end. I see that others have written above that consumers are not directly mentioned in the passage. That is true, but I have seen other questions that invoke unseen actors to offer a plausible explanation to the question being asked, so I did not write off (E) too quickly. At the same time, the answer has to hold up to scrutiny, and picking apart (E) presents a few viable targets. How about we jump in, then?
(E)
Consumers have increased the portion of
paper products that they recycle after using.
My approach to evaluating this answer choice is to see whether the passage provides such information about
consumer behavior. That is, do we know that
consumers are doing the recycling, and do we know that these same consumers have
used paper products before recycling them? I know, recycling does quite often involve turning used paper, in this case, into reusable paper, but can we say that consumers are not simply handing over
unused paper goods to recycling facilities? It might seem like a trifle, but I often say that you want to make every word count in an answer choice. So what does the passage tell us?
Concerning recycling, the passage only mentions that
reports from recycling facilities across the country indicate that the amount of paper-based packaging material that they provide to paper-packaging companies for reuse has been increasing steadily.Where the paper comes from that the recycling facilities pass along to paper-packaging companies is unknown. All we know is that the facilities provide it. Thus, we cannot qualify (E) as a valid answer. We do not have enough information about consumers after all.
I hope that helps. Thank you for thinking to ask me about the question.
- Andrew