To reduce waste of raw materials, the government of Sperland is considering requiring household appliances to be broken down for salvage when discarded. To cover the cost of salvage, the government is planning to charge a fee, which would be imposed when the appliance is first sold. Imposing the fee at the time of salvage would reduce waste more effectively, however, because consumers tend to keep old appliances longer if they are faced with a fee for discarding them. Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument? (A) Increasing the cost of disposing of an appliance properly increases the incentive to dispose of it improperly. (B) The fee provides manufacturers with no incentive to produce appliances that are more durable. (C) For people who have bought new appliances recently, the salvage fee would not need to be paid for a number of years. (D) People who sell their used, working appliances to others would not need to pay the salvage fee. (E) Many nonfunctioning appliances that are currently discarded could be repaired at relatively little expense. Plastic Sleds Step 1: Identify the Question The word weakens indicates that this is a Weaken the Argument question. Step 2: Deconstruct the Argument Plan: req salvage à reduce waste Govt: Salvage fee at purch BUT: Dispose fee à keep longer à Ó reduce waste more Step 3: Pause and State the Goal On Weaken questions, the correct answer should make the conclusion less likely to be valid. The conclusion in this argument is that a disposal fee would do more to reduce waste than would a purchase fee. What other issues could there be with a disposal fee that might make it less effective? Step 4: Work from Wrong to Right (A) CORRECT . The goal of the plan is to reduce waste. If charging a fee at disposal results in illegal disposal, the appliances that are illegally thrown away will not in fact be salvaged, In other words, the program will not achieve its goal to reduce waste; instead, the program itself will encourage the opposite of the desired behavior. (B) Neither of the plans in the argument (fee at purchase or fee at disposal) would influence manufacturers to produce durable appliances. This information is not important in determining whether a disposal fee will be more effective than a purchase fee. (C) This fact would influence the timing of payments and provides a reason some people might prefer a disposal fee. It does not affect the extent to which a disposal fee might better reduce waste. (D) This information strengthens the argument. People would have an incentive (avoiding the fee) to sell used appliances rather than dispose of them, providing another reason a disposal fee would be better. (E) This answer provides an alternative plan to reduce waste: repair old appliances. The argument, however, is that a fee at disposal would be more effective than a fee at purchase. This answer does not impact that argument.

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To reduce waste of raw materials, the government of Sperland is consid

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Experts please help.

I feel that choice (B) does factor in the before and after scenario. Since the consumers are anyway going to keep the appliance for longer when the fee is levied at the disposal stage, manufacturers need not bother about adding durability elements. In case the fee is levied at the point of purchase, the consumers will not keep the appliance for as long and the manufacturer would have greater incentive to ensure durability. Such a scenario directly impacts 'reduce waste of raw materials' as more durable goods would reduce raw materials.

Also I felt option A is poorly worded - Increasing the cost of disposing. We are not talking about any increase here. The fees in both the scenarios are same! The option meant to convey 'Delaying the cost of disposing...'
Please share your thoughts. Thanks!

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jayarora

The argument states that:

“Consumers tend to keep old appliances longer if they are faced with a fee for discarding them.”

And then it concludes that “imposing the fee at the time of salvage would reduce waste more effectively” THAN imposing the fee at the time of purchase.

So, the argument’s conclusion is not about whether or not to charge a fee, but WHEN to charge it. With that in mind, we can look to eliminate answer choices, keeping their precise language in mind.

Here's (B) again:

Quote:

(B) The fee provides manufacturers with no incentive to produce appliances that are more durable.

So, imposing a fee will not affect the durability of the appliances. But remember, the argument’s conclusion was about WHEN the fee is applied.

(B) addresses the effects of a fee on manufacturers processes, but it does not say anything about when that fee is applied. In other words, the answer choice gives us no reason to think that applying the fee earlier would be more effective. We can eliminate (B).

And here’s (A):

Quote:

(A) Increasing the cost of disposing of an appliance properly increases the incentive to dispose of it improperly.

You’re right to note that the fees would be the same in both circumstances, but again the wording of the answer choice is precise. It speaks to increasing the cost of disposing an appliance, not increasing the cost of fees.

If the fee were applied when at the time of purchase, it would increase the cost of purchasing the appliance, not the cost of disposing the appliance. (A) applies only when the fee is paid at the time of disposal, thus the incentive to dispose of the appliance improperly only increases with a later fee. For that reason, (A) weakens the argument and is the correct answer.

I hope that helps!

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jayarora

Hey Jayarora,

Choice B doesn't really affect the conclusion in any way. Let's say that the companies start making products that aren't very durable. This leads to shorter life-cycles, which leads to more waste. Now, does it matter whether the fee is charged at the point of sale or at the point of salvage? No matter the point at which the fee is charged, it will be funneled to reduce the wastage. This does not weaken the conclusion.

The correct answer choice hints at the fact that charging the fee at the point of salvage may make people dispose off the products improperly (without paying the fee.) This will cause a clear increase in waste. Hence A is the correct answer.

Hope this helps.

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To reduce waste of raw materials, the government of Sperland is considering requiring household appliances to be broken down for salvage when discarded. To cover the cost of salvage, the government is planning to charge a fee, which would be imposed when the appliance is first sold. Imposing the fee at the time of salvage would reduce waste more effectively, however, because consumers tend to keep old appliances longer if they are faced with a fee for discarding them.

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

A. Increasing the cost of disposing of an appliance properly increases the incentive to dispose it improperly.
B. The fee provides manufacturers with no incentive to produce appliances that are more durable.
C. For people who have bought new appliances recently, the salvage fee would not need to be paid for a number of years.
D. People who sell their used, working appliances to others would not need to pay the salvage fee.
E. Many nonfunctioning appliances that are currently discarded could be repaired at relatively little expense.

Hi experts

Please check whether my reasoning is correct?
Govt plans to add salvage cost at time of selling product.
So eg. if an item costs $40 normally, will cost now $50 ( $10 salvage cost added) --> This way, govt can cover salvage cost and handle discarding of items properly --> reduce waste
Author says that Imposing the fee at the time of salvage would reduce waste --> Means rather selling item at $50, sell it at $40 only.
And when actually item reaches end of its life, fees should be recovered from owner at that time.
Say, owner will have to pay salvage fee $10 to discard the item, he doesnt want any more.
Author concludes that people wont like to pay just to discard the item so they will tend to keep it, rather than discard it.
This way reduce waste more effectively.

We need to weaken colored part right? we need to show author's thinking is flawed.
A. Increasing the cost of disposing of an appliance properly increases the incentive to dispose it improperly.
If people have to pay $10 just to dispose item properly, they will find other way to avoid fees , which will result in improperly disposed items. So purpose will not be served.

Hope I am correct.

But my question is what does it mean by "effectively" reducing the wastage? Does it mean that "increasing the useful life of the appliance" would be called effectively reducing the wastage? Because I don't know how can be say that the fact consumers keep the appliances longer leads to more effective reduction in waste?

EMPOWERgmatVerbal - can you share thoughts?

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We're dealing with a weaken question here. The argument concludes that imposing the fee at the time of salvage would reduce waste more effectively.

The right answer will lead us to believe the above statement is not necessarily true. Perhaps imposing the fee at the time of salvage would not reduce waste more effectively than imposing the fee at the time the item is purchased. Let's go through the choices:

A - Interesting. If the cost of disposing an appliance properly increases the incentive to dispose of it improperly, then our conclusion is weakened -- imposing the fee at the time of salvage would not reduce waste. It's hard to picture a better choice than A, but let's continue.

B - The fee provides manufacturers with no incentive to produce appliances that are more durable. However, does this mean the fee provides manufacturers with an incentive to make products that are not durable? We can't conclude that -- we simply know the fee would not lead to to more durable products. Durability is not really relevant in this case because we're looking to find a choice that suggests imposing the fee at the time of salvage would not reduce waste more effectively than imposing the fee at the time the item is purchased.

C - The salvage fee would still need to be paid when the time comes -- C is out.

D - People who sell their appliances to others might not need to pay the salvage fee, but the people buying the appliances will need to pay. This doesn't weaken the conclusion.

E - We need an answer choice that gives us reason to believe that imposing the fee at the time of salvage would not reduce waste more effectively than imposing the fee at the time the item is purchased -- E explains a work around but doesn't speak to the impact of a fee. E is out.

A is the correct answer.

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Correct option : A

CR Stem Exam : weaken

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
(A) Increasing the cost of disposing of an appliance properly increases the incentive to dispose of it improperly.
Correct:
- this actually weaken the conclusion of the passage, if the fee collected is less than the savage dispossing, still the govt will end up in loss

(B) The fee provides manufacturers with no incentive to produce appliances that are more durable.
Wrong:
- No Incentive to manufacture, full amount collected, profit to govt, claim intention successful, Strenghten

(C) For people who have bought new appliances recently, the salvage fee would not need to be paid for a number of years.
Wrong:
- this is out of scope kind option, as number of years, fee not collected, but during purchase fee is deducted, how refund will work?

(D) People who sell their used, working appliances to others would not need to pay the salvage fee.
Wrong:
- Fee is collected at the time of purchase, later after sell not inferred in passage

(E) Many nonfunctioning appliances that are currently discarded could be repaired at relatively little expense
Wrong:
Already purchased, rather than dispose, if repaired, the intention of govt is acheived

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Hello experts,
please help me to correct my reasoning for choice A and E
first of all I didn't know the meaning of salvage!
from the context (household appliances to be broken down for salvage when discarded), I thought its about breaking a discarded material for which certain cost has been charged.
In A, its about disposing an appliances while the argument was on breaking. thw two are different plans. still I liked the context of choice A ( increases the incentive to dispose of it improperly)

eliminated B,c,d.

got stuck in E, many appliances, which are discarded could be repaired at a small fee.
now, because of slavage fee at the time of discarding, they will either dump the appliances anyway or they will give the fee. this all somehow increasing the waste, while the appliances could have repaired.
means we could have saved the waste in the first place.

I was not totally convinced with E but since, my mind rejected A in the start, I got convinced with E. I would have selected A with 100% confidence if instead of disposing, salvage or breaking was there.

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If someone can correct my understanding of usage of 'however'
I have read explanations given above and conclusion is / author's opinion is 'Imposing the fee at the time of salvage would reduce waste more effectively, because consumers tend to keep old appliances longer if they are faced with a fee for discarding them.
I don't understand why 'however' is placed after 'effectively' suggesting that 'Imposing the fee at the time of salvage would reduce waste more effectively' however ( it cannot be so -showing a contrast) 'because consumers tend to keep old appliances longer if they are faced with a fee for discarding them.
In this case I feel 'however' should be placed at the beginning of sentence However, imposing .... because... as we want to show a contrast between salvage costs charged at the time purchasing vs charging it while discarding. By placing however in the middle of the last sentence, it illogically implies Imposing fee at the time of salvage would reduce waste more effectively but it cannot be the case since consumers will tend to keep old appliances longer.
AjiteshArun MartyTargetTestPrep sir, please if you can help.

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Dhwanii

Hi Dhwanii,
However is not used here to show contrast rather to stress more emphatically on the derived result from the action of imposing salvaging fees on the appliances purchased.
There are two uses of the word however-

used to introduce a statement that contrasts with or seems to contradict something that has been said previously.

in whatever way; regardless of how

You seem to be referring to the first usage. But, it is the second meaning that is at play here.

Hope it helps.

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Dhwanii

Hi Dhwanii.

When "however" is placed in the middle of a sentence, it can still communicates that there is a contrast between what the sentence in which it is placed says and what the preceding sentence says.

In this case, the meaning communicated via the use of "however" in the middle of the sentence is basically the same as the meaning that would be communicated if "however" were instead at the beginning of the sentence. After all, as you noticed, "however" certainly cannot indicate that there is a contrast between "Imposing the fee at the time of salvage would reduce waste more effectively," and "because consumers tend to keep old appliances longer if they are faced with a fee for discarding them," since the latter is the reason for the former.

In other words, the meaning conveyed by

"the government is planning to charge a fee, which would be imposed when the appliance is first sold. Imposing the fee at the time of salvage would reduce waste more effectively, however,"

is basically the same as the meaning conveyed by

"the government is planning to charge a fee, which would be imposed when the appliance is first sold. However, imposing the fee at the time of salvage would reduce waste more effectively."

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Dhwanii

In this case I feel 'however' should be placed at the beginning of sentence However, imposing .... because... as we want to show a contrast between salvage costs charged at the time purchasing vs charging it while discarding.

Hi Dhwanii,

As has been pointed out above, when however is used to show contrast, it's possible to use it in multiple positions (beginning, middle, end).

1. However, the Prime Minister did not eat the Korma.

2. The Prime Minister, however, did not eat the Korma.

3. The Prime Minister did not eat the Korma, however.

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How A is correct, since its talking about disposing?

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How A is correct, since its talking about disposing?

The passage is about what happens when consumers are "discarding" appliances.

Since "disposing of" in choice (A) is a synonym of "discarding," what choice (A) says applies to what's discussed in the passage.

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The plan is to reduce the wastage by charging fees at the time of disposal and this is also the conclusion

To weaken it we need to show that charging fees at the time of disposal will not lead to reduced wastage. CHoice B shows that manufacturers have no incentive to improve durability which means that they would make less durable products that the customers will be forced to discard irrespective of the fees so clearly the plan to reduce waste will not work despite imposing fees and hence it is a weakener. I am not sure why it is not considered one. MartyTargetTestPrep GMATNinja KarishmaB ThatDudeKnows

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Elite097

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The most important take-away here is that the argument is not about reducing waste of raw materials or about WHETHER to charge a fee, it's about WHEN to charge a fee.

We are tasked with weakening the position that charging at the time of disposal is better than charging at the time of purchase.

Answer choice B might have something to do with the first few words of the argument, "to reduce waste of raw materials," but it doesn't do anything to address the temporal component of the argument.

Answer choice A gives us a clear reason why charging a fee at the time of disposal won't work very well.

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Hi ThatDudeKnows

Option A is the best of the lot. But as I could understand from the passage, the conclusion is that imposing the fee at the time of disposing will reduce the AMOUNT of waste. Option A does not talk about amount of waste. It is more focused on the MANNER in which the waste would be disposed as a result of the fee.

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Namangupta1997

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Let's start by making sure we have the correct conclusion. The goal of the PLAN is to reduce waste of raw materials, but that is not the conclusion of the ARGUMENT. The conclusion of the argument is that we should charge a fee at the time of disposal. We do this in order to reduce waste and we believe charging a fee at the time of disposal will be more effective than charging a fee at the time of purchase, so those are the premises.

Three notes:
1) On plan arguments, the plan itself is almost always the conclusion. The reason for the plan (the goal) is a premise. And if there's some secondary justification, that's also a premise.
2) A good way to know whether you've picked the right conclusion is to try the "why" test. Let's say you you pick what you did. Now, ask why. If the rest of the argument doesn't answer the question, you've got the wrong conclusion. The conclusion can't be about reducing waste since, if we ask ourselves why, the plan doesn't answer the question. It's the other way around. Make the plan the conclusion and ask yourself "why." Now we have reducing waste as an excellent premise.
3) Compound premises are much more common than compound conclusions. You chose "imposing the fee at the time of disposing will reduce the AMOUNT of waste." That's compound in that there are two things going on: impose disposal fee AND fee will reduce waste. Phrased another way: impose disposal fee BECAUSE fee will reduce waste. That "because" is a great clue that whatever follows is going to be the explanation, not the conclusion. I'd keep impose disposal fee as the conclusion and move fee will reduce waste to a premise.

Back to answer choice A. You say it "does not talk about amount of waste." If we increase the incentive to dispose of an appliance improperly, we are going to have more people dumping their appliances somewhere (more waste) rather than those appliances being broken down for salvage.

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I have not seen the solution but I thought (A) and (B) were weakeners to an entirely DIFFERENT plan.

(A) and (B) were weakeners to this plan : Should we introduce a disposal fee or should we not introduce a disposal fee to begin with.

However, I thought the original argument was not about the above at all.

The original argument is instead -
(1) the disposal fee is going to happen ,come what may. That is no longer the question
(2) The only question now is -- when should one apply the disposal fee ?
Should the disposal fee be applied when consumers BUY appliances OR should the disposal fee be applied when consumers DISPOSE appliances.

I was looking for a weakener that weaken

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Hey GMATNinja and other wonderful Verbal Experts,

Answer option A talks about 'increasing' the cost for disposing of an appliance, while the argument talks about 'imposing' a cost for disposing of an appliance. The way answer option A is worded leads us to infer that there is already an existing cost for disposal of an appliance... isn't this a potential problem with this answer option?

Thanking you so much in advance,

Pritam

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pielkay

Hi pielkay,

Those aren't incompatible. For example, what the first half of option A effectively tells us is that the government-imposed fee makes disposing of an appliance more expensive. There may already be other costs associated with getting rid of an appliance, and increasing such costs will ~make more people want to get rid of their appliances in an improper manner. This weakens the argument, because the desired outcome is that discarded appliances be broken down for salvage.