GMAT weekly questions
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, signed in 1987 by more than 150 nations, has attained its short-term goals: it has decreased the rate of increase in amounts of most ozone-depleting chemicals reaching the atmosphere and has even reduced the atmospheric levels of some of them. The projection that the ozone layer will substantially recover from ozone depletion by 2050 is based on the assumption that the protocol's regulations will be strictly followed. Yet there is considerable evidence of violations, particularly in the form of the release of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are commonly used in the refrigeration, heating, and air-conditioning industries. These violations reflect industry attitudes; for example, in the United States, 48% of respondents in a recent survey of subscribers to Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration News, an industry trade journal, said that they did not believe that CFCs damage the ozone layer. Moreover, some in the industry apparently do not want to pay for CFC substitutes, which can run five times the cost of CFCs. Consequently, a black market in imported illicit CFCs has grown. Estimates of the contraband CFC trade range from 10,000 to 22,000 tons a year, with most of the CFCs originating in India and China, whose agreements under the Protocol still allow them to produce CFCs. In fact, the United States Customs Service reports that CFC-12 is a contraband problem second only to illicit drugs.
Question
The passage suggests which of the following about the illicit trade in CFCs?
A. It would cease if manufacturers in India and China stopped producing CFCs.
B. Most people who participate in such trade do not believe that CFCs deplete the ozone layer.
C. It will probably surpass illicit drugs as the largest contraband problem faced by the United States Customs Service.
D. It is fostered by people who do not want to pay the price of CFC substitutes.
E. It has grown primarily because of the expansion of the refrigeration, heating, and air-conditioning industries in foreign countries.
OA:
This question asks what the passage implies about the illicit trade in CFC's. The best answer is D. The passage states that some industry members appear not to want to pay the price of CFC substitutes, and that consequently a black market in cheaper CFC's has emerged. This implies that the black market is fostered at least in part by those industry members who are unwilling to pay the higher price of CFC substitutes.
Choice A can be eliminated because the passage states that only that most contraband CFC's originate in India and China. This does not imply that the illicit trade in CFC's could not continue without manufacturers in those countries.
Choice B is not correct because the passage does not provide information about the beliefs of participants in the illicit CFC trade.
Choice C is incorrect because the passage states only that the United States Customs Service considers the illicit CFC trade to be a problem second only to the illicit drug trade; there is no suggestion in the passage that the illicit CFC trade is expected to develop into a larger problem than the illicit drug trade.
Choice E is incorrect because the passage attributes the growth of the illicit trade in CFC's to the high cost of CFC substitutes, not to an expansion of refridgeration, heating, and air-conditioning industries in foreign countries.