Many economically useful raw materials are nonrenewable and in limited

Question

Many economically useful raw materials are nonrenewable and in limited supply on Earth. Therefore, unless those materials can be obtained somewhere other than Earth, people will eventually be unable to accomplish what they now accomplish using those materials.

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

(A) Some economically useful resources are renewable.

(B) It is extremely difficult to get raw materials from outer space.

(C) Functionally equivalent renewable substitutes could be found for nonrenewable resources that are in limited supply.

(D) What is accomplished now using nonrenewable resources is sometimes not worth accomplishing.

(E) It will be a few hundred years before the Earth is depleted of certain nonrenewable resources that are in limited supply.

chetaksatav · Answer

Confused between C & D.
I think its C as whatever is achieved with nonrenewable resources that are available on earth can have subtistutes and same things can be achieved with these substitutes which will be renewable.

bansalsimona · Answer

hey, can anyone explain why E is wrong ?>

RohitSaluja · Answer

Hi  bansalsimona , I might be late to respond but E says If anything E could be a partial strengthener to the argument. The argument says that nonrenewable resources would get exhausted and E just confirms that they will if not in near future but in a hundred year. So E does nothing to weakens the claims.

I hope this helps. Let me know in case of any further queries, it is always fun to learn together.

A_Nishith · Answer

The argument can be summarized as follows:

Premise: Many economically useful raw materials are nonrenewable and in limited supply on Earth.

Conclusion: Therefore, unless those materials can be obtained from somewhere else, people will eventually be unable to do what they now do using those materials.

This is a classic "no substitute, so depletion = doom" type of reasoning.

To weaken this argument, we should show that even if the materials aren't obtained from elsewhere, we still could continue accomplishing the same things — i.e., the depletion won’t necessarily stop us.

Let's go through the options:
(A) Some economically useful resources are renewable.

This doesn’t help. The argument is about nonrenewable resources. That some other resources are renewable doesn’t affect the logic that we’ll be unable to do certain things if nonrenewables run out.

❌ Incorrect

(B) It is extremely difficult to get raw materials from outer space.

This actually strengthens the argument. It implies we likely can’t get materials elsewhere, so depletion on Earth would cause problems.

❌ Incorrect

(C) Functionally equivalent renewable substitutes could be found for nonrenewable resources that are in limited supply.

Bingo. This undermines the logic that "once these run out, we can't do those things anymore." If we can substitute them with renewables that do the same job, then running out of the original materials won’t stop us from accomplishing the same things.

✅ Correct

(D) What is accomplished now using nonrenewable resources is sometimes not worth accomplishing.

This weakens the importance of the outcome, but not the logic of the conclusion. Even if it's not worth doing, we still wouldn't be able to do it — which is what the argument claims.

❌ Incorrect

(E) It will be a few hundred years before the Earth is depleted of certain nonrenewable resources that are in limited supply.

This just delays the conclusion, but doesn’t challenge the logic. The author says "eventually," so this doesn't weaken the argument.

❌ Incorrect

✅ Correct answer: (C)

Many economically useful raw materials are nonrenewable and in limited

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Many economically useful raw materials are nonrenewable and in limited

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