Recently, motorists have begun purchasing more and more

Responding to a pm:

(A) vs (C)

Recently, motorists have begun purchasing more and more fuel-efficient economy and hybrid cars that consume fewer gallons of gasoline per mile traveled. There has been debate as to whether we can conclude that these purchases will actually lead to an overall reduction in the total consumption of gasoline across all motorists.
The answer is no, since motorists with more fuel-efficient vehicles are likely to drive more total miles than they did before switching to a more fuel-efficient car, negating the gains from higher fuel-efficiency.

What is the conclusion of this argument?

"These purchases will NOT lead to an overall reduction in the total consumption of gasoline across all motorists."

This is the position the argument takes.

So the position that the argument opposes is

"These purchases will actually lead to an overall reduction in the total consumption of gasoline across all motorists."

This has been given in our second bold statement: There has been debate as to whether we can conclude that these purchases will actually lead to an overall reduction in the total consumption of gasoline across all motorists.

This statement introduces the opposing conclusion.

(A) The first describes a premise that is accepted as true; the second introduces a conclusion that is opposed by the argument as a whole.

The first bold statement: Recently, motorists have begun purchasing more and more fuel-efficient economy and hybrid cars that consume fewer gallons of gasoline per mile traveled.

This is a premise and has been accepted as true. We know it has been accepted as true since the last line ends with - "...negating the gains from higher fuel-efficiency"
We have seen above that the second bold statement tells us about a conclusion that the argument opposes.

So (A) is correct.

(C)The first is evidence that has been used to support a position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second provides information to undermine the force of that evidence.

The evidence is "Recently, motorists have begun purchasing more and more fuel-efficient economy and hybrid cars that consume fewer gallons of gasoline per mile traveled."
That is, "the motorists have begun purchasing fuel efficient cars that give better mileage."

The second bold statement does not undermine this evidence at all. In fact, it builds up on it with - will it lead to overall decreased fuel consumption?

Hence (C) is not correct.

Dude take control of the question.

Sometimes we tend to be confused by the question but the trick to these questions is to understand the overall structure and the sigle phrases.

The first is a fact or evidence. so I write evidece or something.

The second seems the conclusion I have doubts.

the third is not a conclusion is something similar to a fact or something. So the 2 \(IS\) the conclusion.

Once you have established that, reorganize the information.

A premise or something; a conclusion and in the end a fact the in somehow support the conclusion

Now I have A and C (the others a clearly wrong)

But C says : The first is evidence that has been used to support a position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second provides information to undermine the force of that evidence.

Basically the first one support something that the argument oppose as whole and the second undermine the first bold part and establish once again the start position.........mmmm it doesn't have much sense.

A The first describes a premise that is accepted as true; the second introduces a conclusion that is opposed by the argument as a whole.

is accepted as true because we know thanks to "have begun" is already done by motorists. the second is the conclusion and then the argument go against it and we know this because the 3 sentence is introduced by " The answer is no"

I was quite tough.

Stay strong
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The conclusion of the the whole argument is no doubt the last sentence . The second sentence is a sub conclusion made from the premises given in the first sentence but the author opposes this sub conclusion(2 nd sentence) in the overall argument

Take away : There can me multiple sub conclusions/inferences but there can be just one overall conclusion.
Hope i made sense

I Still don't see it . I agree that a passage can have main conclusion and sub conclusion. But this does not sound like a sub conclusion either . - "There has been a debate of weather etc " this kinda implies that "There is a debate that weather something will happen or not happen ". Firstly , answering NO to this does not qualify as opposing it. Secondly , sentences that sound like " There has been a debate" , cannot be conclusions/sub conclusions . They are premises .
I dont know if I am missing something .

VeritasPrepKarishma - Can you please explain A and C. I am puzzled that how can second part of A says that the 2nd boldface is a conclusion?
Please if you can clarify. Many thanks in advance!

This is fairly straightforward question, and here is how I approached it. The jargon such as premise, conclusion etc we use to tackle a CR question is great, but reading a really big prompt on the screen is a daunting task in itself and I personally get confused as to which sentence means what. So to keep it simple let's take one sentence at a time, we start with the first sentence, "Motorist have begun... per mile travelled", what does this sentence tell you, apart from the actual semantics of the sentence, the sentence is pure information, no judgements, no opinions offered by the author, sort of a premise, so keep it aside. Now the next sentence, "There has been ... all motorists", this too is actually a fact, essentially an ideal conclusion that would be true in an ideal world, cool, so we have something other than a premise here. Let's move on to the next sentence "The answer is no ... fuel-efficiency", ah, now you can hear the author talk, take a closer look at this sentence, there is some explicit reasoning given by the author and it starts with since, so the part after the 'since' is actually the premise of the author's intended conclusion which is "no, the ideal conclusion we stated above is not true". Now let's get to some eliminations:

1)The first describes a premise that is accepted as true; the second introduces a conclusion that is opposed by the argument as a whole.
Perfect this is what we want!

2)The first states a position taken by the argument; the second introduces a conclusion that is refuted by additional evidence.
As described above, the first sentence is certainly not a position taken by the argument, the second part of this option is actually correct

3)The first is evidence that has been used to support a position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second provides information to undermine the force of that evidence.
The first sentence is in fact evidence to support a position that the argument apposes, but the second does not undermine the force of that evidence, in fact, the second is actually an inference made on the evidence.

4)The first is a conclusion that is later shown to be false; the second is the evidence by which that conclusion is proven false.
Duh, the first is definitely not a conclusion, out!

5)The first is a premise that is later shown to be false; the second is a conclusion that is later shown to be false.
the author never refutes the evidence presented in the first sentence, out!

@marcab : which one 2nd bold line ...hr. in fact continious lines .....pls chk

Actually this is the question. I too got it wrong and too feel pessimistic about this question.

I do not understand. Isn't it kinda obvious that the conclusion is " the answer is no - that there will not a reduction in in the total consumption of gasoline across all motorists".
Conclusion cannot be "There has been debate as to whether we can conclude that these purchases will actually lead to an overall reduction in the total consumption of gasoline across all motorists. " , since this is just a mere observation by the author and not an opinion or any such statement that makes this a conclusion. None of the answers make sense . Option A would have made sense , if it doesn't mention the second sentence to be the conclusion

-Jyothi

"There has been debate as to whether we can conclude" If you rephrase that it's " can we conclude that A is true"?

You see its not necessarily the authors conclusion.Its someone else's conclusion which the author opposes.The authors conclusion is at the end.

When the author says " There is a debate" it doesnt necessarily mean that he has seen a bunch of people debating about it.He is showing us that some people might take the premise in first line and conclude that A is true.In the last sentence he corrects that conclusion and says B is true

Got it now Please tell me you have got it A kudos would be nive

Can u please explain why B is wrong?

Hi Karishma,

Thanks for explanation.
I chose A, but still had some doubts.
the second bold face - a conclusion? - is it not a position that argument as a whole seeks to oppose?

Do you think, had choice A read as " The first describes a premise that is accepted as true; the second is a position that is opposed by the argument as a whole", it would have been better?

Please help.

Thanks

Note that conclusion/position/opinion all are the same as far as we are concerned. The position the author takes is the same as the opinion of the author which is the same as the conclusion of his argument.

My approach is to write down BF1/ BF2 then what I think each is before I look at the answers
BF1: Evidence/ Fact/ Premise
BF2: A statement that is opposed later in the argument

Eliminate answers that don't match up with BF1 first
A- Keep
B - Incorrect. First statement is NOT a position, but rather fact.
C - Keep
D - Incorrect. BF1 is NOT a position.
E - Well we can eliminate E for BF1 actually since the premise isn't ever shown to be false

Eliminate remaining answers that don't match with BF2 thoughts
C - The second isn't used to undermine the evidence it is information concerning a position on the evidence itself.

A is correct

Reasoning given here is implausible for me .... second bold face cannot be conclusion its clearly given that there is a debate as to whether conclude....... so there is a debate its not a conclusion

For those who have confusion between A and C :
1)The first describes a premise that is accepted as true; the second introduces a conclusion that is opposed by the argument as a whole.
[b]As per (A), the second bold "introduces a conclusion ". (A) doesn't say that the second bold is the argument's conclusion.
So, (A) is correct.

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