Most of the current developed nations in the world have used Fossil Fu

Question

Most of the current developed nations in the world have used Fossil Fuels such as Coal, Petrol, Diesel etc. when they were considered as “Still-Developing” nations. Economists hypothesize that the high fuel efficiency i.e., high energy output per unit fuel of these fuels played a primary role in these nations achieving their current status. Additionally, economists propose that any current “still-developing” nation must utilize fossil fuels as much as possible for its energy needs, if it wants to minimize the time taken to become a “Developed Nation”.

Which of the following is most relevant in evaluating the Economists’ proposal?

A) Whether there were countries in the past that did not utilize fossil fuels and still became developed nations.
B) Whether advancements in technology have enabled the equipment used in generating high energy output per unit fuel from fossil fuels to generate a higher output when used with contemporary renewable fuels recently discovered.
C) Whether the cost of extracting and utilizing fossil fuels has increased recently.
D) Whether the fuel used by citizens forms a major proportion of the total fuel used by the country as a whole.
E) Whether the number of “still-developing” nations has decreased steadily over the past few years.

Sam1993 · Answer

Argument given is the developed countries primarily used fossil fuels when they were still developing, which provided them with higher energy output per unit of fossil fuels.further, author says , to change their status from developing to developed in minimum time, developing countries should use fossil fuels, because it provided highest energy output per unit .

To evaluate this argument, we need to establish a fact that whether there any exist any technological update which will allow higher energy output per unit of fossil fuel or the technology available now allows use of fossil fuels in conjunction with renewable fuels and provides much higher energy output per unit than available earlier.

A) out of scope
B)this option matches our pre thinking

C)cost is out of scope.main concern here is energy output per unit of fuel.
D)out of scope
E)this option is also out of scope,i.e even if still developing nations have reduced in number, whatever number. Of nations are there,their development rate is still being considered.

Answer is option D.

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kungfury42 · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja   MartyTargetTestPrep

Can you please help with this question? I was down to A and B and chose A.

My reasoning: The economist argues that   any current “still-developing” nation  must  utilize fossil fuels as much as possible   based on the premise that current world's developed nations emerged primarily by using fossil fuels as much as possible. But if we show that there are some nations that became developed despite not using fossil fuels, then the argument breaks apart. Now the current developing nations no longer  must  use fossil fuels because there can be other ways as well.

Whereas in B we don't know whether just the technological advancements would be sufficient to cast a doubt on the utility of fossil fuels? We don't know anything about the large scale utility of these technological advancements nor do we know anything about the availability of recently discovered renewable energy sources.

Can you please share your thoughts on this question? Thanks much in advance.

Posted from my mobile device

gmatophobia · Answer

kungfury42

While experts share their thoughts, sharing my two cents here (if that helps resolve your queries)

The Economist's proposal, as you have rightly identified, is "  any current “still-developing” nation  must   utilize fossil fuels   as much as possible  for its energy needs  "

Note that the Economist's propose that only fossil fuels must be used (not any other source such as Solar Energy, Wind Energy, Geo Thermal Energy etc) and that too "as much as possible".

The reason for the belief is because of the hypothesis, " the high fuel efficiency played a primary role ...  ".

Hence if we look closely while the economists believe that ONLY fossil fuels can result in high fuel efficiency in his / her conclusion, the hypothesis just revolves around high fuel efficiency without any mention of the source.

With this background, lets see option A and option B.

Option A

From the passage we know that Economist's hypothesize revolve around "high fuel efficiency" and its role in making nations achieve "developed" status. It's not necessary that the fuel efficiency has to come from fossil fuel only.

Let's use the test to extremes to determine this-

Extreme 1  - Whether there were countries in the past that did not utilize fossil fuels and still became developed nations. -  Yes  there were. 
For ex. there were few countries that did not utilize fossil fuels and still became developed nations. They could have used other sources to meet the condition "high fuel efficiency". Hence this breaks the argument that fossil fuel is a must.

Extreme 2  - Whether there were countries in the past that did not utilize fossil fuels and still became developed nations. -  No  there weren't. 
Even with this, we don't know if those countries used fossil fuel as a primary source for its energy needs. They could have used fossil fuel in conjunction with other sources.

Hence, A doesn't help us much.

Option B

This option provides a hint on the possibility of presence of other sources of energy. All we need is "high fuel efficiency" as per the hypothesis, so lets perform the test of extremes on option B and see the outcomes -

Extreme 1  - Whether advancements in technology have enabled the equipment used in generating high energy output per unit fuel from fossil fuels to generate a higher output when used with contemporary renewable fuels recently discovered. -  Yes

Well ! if we can get higher output with contemporary renewable fuels, we don't need to " utilize fossil fuels as much as possible ". Hence this breaks the argument.

Extreme 2 - Whether advancements in technology have enabled the equipment used in generating high energy output per unit fuel from fossil fuels to generate a higher output when used with contemporary renewable fuels recently discovered. -  No

If there is no alternate source that can generate higher output that the output generated by fossil fuel, then we have to utilize fossil fuel as much as possible to meet high fuel efficiency. This supports the conclusion.

Hence B wins !

IMO we have to take such details with a pinch of salt. While we don't know the scale we know that we can generate "a higher output". I think knowing that should suffice to answer the question.

Hope this clarifies your query.

kungfury42 · Answer

Thank you so much gmatophobia . Your explanation is very insightful and I think I get a fair idea now as to how to think about this problem in the correct manner. Thanks much for your patient and detailed explanation

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Kungfury.

You left out some key parts of the conclusion.

Let's look at the entire conclusion. I bolded the two parts that you missed.

any current “still-developing” nation must utilize fossil fuels  as much as possible  for its energy needs,  if it wants to minimize the time taken to become a “Developed Nation” .

Now let's consider (A).

(A) Whether there were countries in the past that did not utilize fossil fuels and still became developed nations.

Regardless of whether there were countries that did not use fossil fuels and became developed nations, it could still be the case that o minimize the time taken to become a “Developed Nation,” a nation should use fossil fuels as much as possible. So, neither a yes answer a no answer to (A) affects the argument.

Now let's consider (B)

(B) Whether advancements in technology have enabled the equipment used in generating high energy output per unit fuel from fossil fuels to generate a higher output when used with contemporary renewable fuels recently discovered.

We can see that yes answer to (B) would indicate that the conclusion is not true by indicating that a nation should not "utilize fossil fuels as much as possible" but rather should use renewable fuels along with fossil fuels.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Most of the current developed nations in the world have used Fossil Fu

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