The earth’s resources are being depleted much too fast. To correct

I like (B). The argument assumes that the U.S. is currently part of the problem, and (B) is the only choice that gives us any evidence of that assumption.

(D) actually WEAKENS the argument. The argument implies that the Earth's resources are being depleted because of ever-increasing consumption. If other countries have decided to keep their consumption at the current level, that would help correct the problem, in which case the U.S. would NOT need to keep its own consumption at present levels. We could have a fossil fuel party, and the rest of the world would pick up the slack!
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The argument and all the options are rather vague. I don't see it as a GMAT-relevant CR question. But if you must evaluate it, here goes:

Rate of depletion is high in the world.
Conclusion: To correct this, US must consume at same rate for many years to come.
Conclusion refers to US whereas the premises talk about depletion in the world. We need to say why US is singled out to consume responsibly.

(A) New resource deposits are constantly being discovered.
Reduces the need to worry about rate of depletion. Weakens our argument.

(B) The United States consumes one-third of all resources used in the world.
It says that US plays a big role in depletion. Hence, if US becomes responsible, it will make a difference.

(C) Other countries need economic development more than the United States does.
A new parameter - economic development - is introduced. How this links with use of resources, we cannot say. Is economic development stalled if rate of resources used does not increase? Can we not increase efficiency? This is irrelevant to our argument.

(D) Other countries have agreed to hold their resource consumption at present levels.
Currently depletion is happening very fast. If other countries have agreed to hold the consumption at present levels, then it may not matter whether US is holding its consumption at the present level too. I understand the problem many of you are facing. But note that we do not know what "to correct this" means in the argument. Does it mean to "hold the depletion rate" or to "reduce the speed though increased depletion is fine" - we don't know. That is why I said that the argument is just too vague.

(E) The United States has been conserving resources for several years.
If US has already been conserving resources, it holding consumption steady may not make any difference.

So (B) might be the best out of the given bad choices.
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Should be B. We need to know the impact of a reduction of US consumption would be on world consumption. Let's say the US only consumed 1% of the world's resources. Then the US reducing consumption would have negligble effect on the planet.

I am with answer B

A) out of scope / neutral
B) strengthens the argument the most - if the U.S. consumes 1/3 of the resources used this shows that its consumption level will have a significant impact on the depletion of the Earth's resources. Remember we have to try to stick to the narrow scope of argument and not introduce some other reasoning!
C) irrelevant
D) the stimulus does not mention anything about other countries so we cannot assume that they carry the same impact as the United States. Maybe some might but maybe all of the other countries COMBINED does not have anywhere near the impact as the US. We simply cannot infer from what the stimulus says.
E) this might have strengthen the argument except that this choice is talking about what the U.S. has done in past - we are concerned with what the U.S. will do for years to come. We simply cannot assume that U.S. will continue this pattern.

I think the choice is between B and D.
Let's analyse these two.
Stem:
Premise: The earth’s resources are being depleted much too fast.
Conclusion: To correct this, the United States must keep its resource consumption at present levels for many years to come.
So, premise is talking about resource depletion on EARTH, whereas conclusion is saying keeping the US consumption constant will stop THIS depletion. Here, the author is assuming something about other consumers. Stating the significance of US is not enough, even if US is consuming 90% of total consumption! Think what would happen if other countries were increasing their consumption at 300%. Total consumption would not stay the same.

(B) The United States consumes one-third of all resources used in the world.
This fact by itself is neutral. As shown in the table, below, to keep total world consumption constant we need infomation about other consumers.
(D) Other countries have agreed to hold their resource consumption at present levels.
As the table below shows, keeping the consumption of other countries constant make the author's conclusion more likely to happen.

Table:
Let's assume all countries consume 100t (t=tonne) of resources. The aim is to keep total consumption constant in the future. US consumes, say 35t.

In Years: 0____1_____2_____3
The _US: 35___35____35____35
Other__: 65___65____65____35
Total___: 100__100__100___100

The earth’s resources are being depleted much too fast. To correct this, the United States must keep its resource consumption at present levels for many years to come.

ASSUMPTION- UNITED STATES IS CONSUMING RESOURCES MUCH TOO FAST..........( IF IT DOES NOT FURTHER ACCELERATE ITS CONSUMPTION LEVEL THE ACCELERATION OF DEPLETION WILL STALL......)


Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument above?

(A) New resource deposits are constantly being discovered.WEAKENER....
(B) The United States consumes one-third of all resources used in the world.CORRECT ...AS PER OUR GUESS...
(C) Other countries need economic development more than the United States doesSO WHAT?.
(D) Other countries have agreed to hold their resource consumption at present level.SO WHAT?
(E) The United States has been conserving resources for several yearsUS CONSERVING ITS RESOURCES FOR SEVERAL YEARS DOES NOTHING TO OVERALL EARTH'S RESOURCES DEPLETION, WHICH CONTINUES........ .

I am still unable to understand why option B is correct. What if other countries such as Japan has a consumption rate of 2/3? Then even if US maintains its consumption rate, Japan will have to do it as well otherwise the earth’s resources will continue to deplete. I picked option D because if every other country does agree to maintain their present level consumption rate, only then the earth's resources will level off and not deplete. I am not really understanding the gist behind option B and why option D is incorrect. Could one of you experts please comment on this? Would immensely appreciate it!

GMATNinja broall nightblade354 VeritasKarishma

VeritasKarishma
USA consumes 1/3 rd of the total resources.
The resources has been depleting fast.
USA will continue consumption at the same rate as present.
So, what does it say...the depletion will continue at the same rate.
So, how does this strengthen?

The rate of consumption is normally expected to increase year on year. By keeping the rate same for many years, the rate of consumption will not increase and hence this helps.
As I said in my explanation to option (D) above - the argument is vague. We don't know the exact meaning of "to correct this" - does it mean keep the rate same or decrease it? We don't know.
Don't waste much time on this question.
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What if there is country "X" which consumes 40 % of world resource , then US alone with 1/3rd is not the most significant consumer of resources in terms of proportion of the resouces.
Hence the arguement fails .
However with D, IF OTHERS hold it at a constant rate , US increase of decrease would directly impact the consumption of the resources and its availability.

Care to correct , anyone ?

I don't fully understand this answer. I had a huge problem whether to choose B or D and here is my reasoning:

(B) The United States consumes one-third of all resources used in the world.- so? there is a lack of comparison. Why should we compare countries in such a uniform way. I mean, what if China consumes lets say 50% of global resources- I would say that this percentage is rather small as there are many more Chinese people in the world and "per capita contribution would much much smaller in the case of China".


(D) Other countries have agreed to hold their resource consumption at present levels.- Ok, so the statement described a global problem ( a problem for each and every county); isn't a fact that the majority tries to solve this problem an indicator.

I know that no country gives a damn about "the cause" or the other countries doing, but still. I don't find any of those answers a particularly good argument.

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