At last weeks conference on global climate change, most member nation

Question

At last week’s conference on global climate change, most member nations favored laws restricting the emission of chemical pollutants, whether or not specific geographic regions could be shown to have been affected by a particular effluent.

To avoid undue restrictions, what must be proven is that

A. any uniform international regulations adopted at this conference will probably be put on a fast track for approval in members’ legislatures. 
 B. any substance made subject to these regulations actually causes environmental harm. 
 C. the countries that advocate for more regulation are the ones with the smallest manufacturing base. 
 D. any given pollutant that is to be regulated persists in the environment rather than decaying into harmless elements. 
 E. the global warming that has already taken place is reversible.

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kanikaa9 · Accepted Answer

Very important thing is to read the stem carefully. The stem says "To avoid undue restrictions, what must be proven is that ... ?" so what must be proven / done in order to avoid unnecessary restrictions ... since majority members (most i.e. > 50%) have decided to ban, it is important we don't ban just any affluent, not the ones that don't cause any harm. Hence, B is our winner.

D doesn't really fit it the argument. This question is more like Must be true and complete the passage.

A, C, E are useless statements.

If you found this helpful, kudos please.

Bunuel · Answer

Official Explanation
   
 Identify the Question Type:
 
The question asks for an unstated piece of information that must be shown in order to reach a conclusion. That's a subtle way of asking for an Assumption.

Untangle the Stimulus:
 
The conclusion here is actually in the question step: The author wants to avoid undue restrictions. The evidence in the stimulus is that nations are looking to pass laws reducing the emission of pollutants.

Predict the Answer:
 
Those restrictions would be undue if the pollutants were not actually causing environmental harm. In order to avoid "undue restrictions," it must be assumed that the chemicals being regulated are, indeed, harming the environment.

Evaluate the Choices:
 
(B) is correct. If regulations are limited to known harmful effluents, then harmless effluents are not regulated unnecessarily.

(A) is irrelevant; whether regulations are adopted quickly does not change whether they are overly restrictive.

(C) is irrelevant; the politics are unrelated to the problem and the question of whether the policies are overly restrictive.

(D) is not necessary. Even if these chemicals didn't persist, they could still be harmful. As long as the chemicals are shown to be harmful, even if they do decay later, then the restrictions would not be undue.

(E) is irrelevant; the issue is stopping further pollution, not reversing past damage.

TAKEAWAY : When an author wants to stop doing something, there must be a good reason to do so.

At last weeks conference on global climate change, most member nation

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At last weeks conference on global climate change, most member nation

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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