Fines levied against those responsible for certain environmentally

Question

Fines levied against those responsible for certain environmentally damaging accidents are now so high that it costs a company responsible for such an accident more to pay the fine that it would have cost to adopt measures that would have prevented the accident. Therefore, since businesses value their profits, those that might have such accidents will now install adequate environmental safeguards.

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

(A) Businesses generally greatly underestimate the risk of future accidents. 
(B) Businesses are as concerned with long-term as they are with short-term strategies for maximizing profits. 
(C) Businesses generally do the environmentally "right" thing only if doing so makes good business sense. 
(D) Businesses treat fines that are levied against them as an ordinary business expense. 
(E) Businesses are leaning to exploit the public's environmental awareness in promoting themselves.

Source: LSAT

TaN1213 · Accepted Answer

IMO A
If Businesses generally greatly underestimate the risk of future accidents, those that might have such accidents will be reluctant to spend on safe guarding measures apart from paying fines, as they have already believed that such an accident won't occur in future and installing adequate environmental safeguards will only be an additional unnecessary expense.
 
'D' was a contender till I realised that this option would actually contradict the premise which says "since businesses value their profits". This implies that if businesses can eliminate one expense, though ordinary, the saving of money would be a profit to them. So the motto would be to minimize the expense regardless of its type - ordinary or additional.

Squib17 · Answer

This definitely a great question! I had marked option D, which is incorrect!

. Went through a number of online explanations to understand where I faltered! Premise: Fines levied against those responsible for certain environmentally damaging accidents are now so high that it costs a company responsible for such an accident more to pay the fine that it would have cost to adopt measures that would have prevented the accident. Conclusion: Therefore, since businesses value their profits , those that might have such accidents will now install adequate environmental safeguards. Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument? (A) Businesses generally greatly underestimate the risk of future accidents. This is the correct answer! Focus on the underlined sentence - " that might have such accidents will now install". Here the author assumes that such accidents in present would motivate the company to install safeguards. But if a company say underestimates such future accidents?? If it assumes that such accidents happen once in say 10 years, then it might consider not installing the safeguards. Thus, this option definitely weakens the argument! ] (B) Businesses are as concerned with long-term as they are with short-term strategies for maximizing profits. This is irrelevant, we are not bothered with long-term and short-term strategies, we just need to prove that the company won't install the safeguards, as its profit might not be affected ] (C) Businesses generally do the environmentally "right" thing only if doing so makes good business sense. This option kind of strengthens it and makes us believe that the company might install the safeguards - eliminated ] (D) Businesses treat fines that are levied against them as an ordinary business expense. Now this is what I had marked! This is incorrect. The company cares for its profit. Now if it considers it as an ordinary business expense, then that means, it would have to reduce this amount from the revenue that it is generating and that might lead to the decrease in its overall profit! If it reduces the profit, which the company cares so much about, then it would definitely install the safeguards to reduce such reductions in profit. So this option kind of strengthens the argument. ] (E) Businesses are leaning to exploit the public's environmental awareness in promoting themselves. this is irrelevant and doesn't help us weakening the argument. ]

zanaik89 · Answer

The answer is D

Acc to my reasoning, if "Businesses treat fines that are levied against them as an ordinary business expense." then they may not care about such accidents and install adequate environmental safeguards.

TheRzS · Answer

I answered D
Reanalyzed in my head afterwards, realized that the answer should be A, and it is simple, really.
A company   can     will  ] "install adequate environmental safeguards" only if it can   estimate correctly  .
If it    underestimates      estimates wrong , either willfully or unwillingly ] it simply   cannot  install adequate environmental l safeguards.

I channelled my thought with the notion that the company   refuses   to install adequate environmental safeguards, what if it  cannot , because it  estimates wrong ?

gmatexam439 · Answer

Fines levied against those responsible for certain environmentally damaging accidents are now so high that it costs a company responsible for such an accident more to pay the fine that it would have cost to adopt measures that would have prevented the accident. Therefore, since businesses value their profits, those that might have such accidents will now install adequate environmental safeguards.

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

(A) Businesses generally greatly underestimate the risk of future accidents. - Correct. If the business underestimate the future accidents, then they will not take any measures to install adequate environmental safeguards. 
(B) Businesses are as concerned with long-term as they are with short-term strategies for maximizing profits. - This is a factual statement. We are just worried about the businesses that take into account future accidents. 
(C) Businesses generally do the environmentally "right" thing only if doing so makes good business sense. - This will strengthen the argument. The business will try to avoid any unnecessary accident that might cost them their fortune. 
(D) Businesses treat fines that are levied against them as an ordinary business expense. - This is just a factual statement. This tells us that how the businesses maintain their books of account post the fine is levied against them. This doesn't tell us as to why the businesses will not install adequate environmental safeguards. 
(E) Businesses are leaning to exploit the public's environmental awareness in promoting themselves. - This is irrelevant to the argument at hand.

Skywalker18 · Answer

The conclusion of the argument is that companies that might have environmental accidents will install safeguards against them. Why? Because the costs of the fines for such accidents are more than the costs of preventing the accident and companies value their profits.

Any gaps? For one, who is to say the company can predict potential environmental hazards? Also, perhaps they can't predict the costs. This latter gap is what (A) hinges on. If businesses greatly underestimate the risk of these accidents, they won't be motivated to put in the safeguards.

(B) is out of scope as it introduces long and short term issues.
(C) is out of scope -- the environmentally "right" thing is never discussed.
(D) is out of scope - how the business treat the fines is not discussed or relevant.
(E) is similarly out of scope. Even if businesses are starting to exploit our environmental awareness, they still may want to install these safeguards to protect their profits. This answer does not address the core of the argument.

septwibowo · Answer

At first, I chose D - while realizing that "ordinary business expense" is vague.

A is the best weakener. When businesses don't care about the future accidents, why they must install safeguards?

Thanks, good question!

patto · Answer

Would you please explain why the correct answer is A instead of D? I still don't get the point after reading the discussion.

GMATNinja · Answer

The cost to adopt measures that would prevent accidents is LOWER than the cost of paying the fine if you have an accident. So, it would be cheaper to adopt the measures to PREVENT the accident than to pay the fine if you have an accident.

Based on that information, the author concludes that businesses that might have such accidents will now install adequate environmental safeguards. But what if those businesses think to themselves, "Well, yes, adopting the measures is cheaper than paying the fines, but we probably won't have an accident so why bother?"

If "businesses generally greatly underestimate the risk of future accidents," then they will think that they are probably NOT going to have an accident. If they are probably NOT going to have an accident, why pay all that money adopting preventative measures? Such businesses would NOT install adequate environmental safeguards because they think there is no need. Thus, (A) definitely weakens the argument.

(D) is irrelevant. The fines might be an ordinary business expense, but if a business can avoid that expense by replacing it with a  cheaper  expense (adopting preventative measures), then the business would still want to go with the cheaper option. (D) does not weaken the argument, so (A) is a much better answer.

guptakashish02 · Answer

Need help here.

(A) Businesses generally  greatly underestimate  the risk of future accidents. = If the businesses greatly underestimate the risks, that means they have more accidents than predicted . So they should adopt for measures. Hence strengthen

teaserbae · Answer

I will try to explain you

Yeah it's true that If the businesses greatly underestimate the risks, that means they have more accidents than predicted.
Yeah they should adopt the measure
But see what there in the conclusion Therefore, since businesses value their profits, those that might have such accidents will now install adequate environmental safeguards.
It is already mentioned in the conclusion that the Business will adopt the measures but to adopt such measure they should be able to estimate the risks
In A it is clearly mentioned that they understimate the risk, if they underestimate the risk they won't take some of the measures and thereby there will be more loss

unraveled · Answer

Generally environmental accidents are not controllable and this passage exactly touches that point but delicately.
It was between A and D, unfortunately chose D even though i got it right analysing that it is contradicting passage. The conclusion clearly says that businesses that value their profits, whereas in D it says they treat fines as ordinary expense. This itself is enough to eliminate it.

Underestimating future accidents is as good as not installing adequate environmental safeguards.
Analogy: Road accidents happen when people lose focus or assume that it might not happen to them. The moment one downs his/her guards the probability of accidents increase.

Answer A.

KarishmaB · Answer

Responding to a pm: Why not (D)? Premises : Fines levied in case if accidents are now so high that it costs a company responsible for such an accident more to pay the fine that it would have cost to prevent the accident. businesses value their profits, Conclusion : Those that might have such accidents will now install adequate environmental safeguards. (A) Businesses generally greatly underestimate the risk of future accidents. Correct. The author is comparing today's expense with a future possible expense - that today's expense has become cheaper. But if the possibility of the future expense is very low, then is today's expense justified for the business (talking in purely monetary terms)? Perhaps no. If the businesses generally greatly underestimate the risk of future accidents, they may calculate the probability of a future accident as 1% so the possibility of that future expense is very low and hence they may be willing to take the risk of higher expense in the future. So they may still not install adequate environmental safeguards. So the conclusion is weakened. (B) Businesses are as concerned with long-term as they are with short-term strategies for maximizing profits. If anything, this strengthens our argument. If they worry about long term profit as much as they worry about short term, then then would want to take measures to ensure that they don't need to pay huge fines in the future. (C) Businesses generally do the environmentally "right" thing only if doing so makes good business sense. This is kind of what the author implies. That now since it will impact their profit, they might do the right thing. It certainly doesn't weaken our argument. (D) Businesses treat fines that are levied against them as an ordinary business expense. Whether they treat the fines as ordinary business expense or special business expense or whatever, an expense is an expense and it reduces profit. If they adopt measures today by installing some new machinery, it will also be ordinary business expense. The way they define a particular expense does not change that it is an expense and will reduce profit of the business. All expenses of the business have to be borne by the business. (E) Businesses are leaning to exploit the public's environmental awareness in promoting themselves. Irrelevant. Answer (A) Check out another weaken question here: https://youtu.be/Nl9wXcDY-ps

Fines levied against those responsible for certain environmentally

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