To save time and money on water and maintenance, many homeowners are

Question

To save time and money on water and maintenance, many homeowners are opting for the use of synthetic potted plants, instead of real plants, for the decoration of the interiors of their homes. The synthetic plants being sold today are very realistic in their details and often quite beautiful. Since most homeowners welcome ways to reduce expenses, synthetic plants are increasing in popularity. Because of these benefits, homeowners should replace their live indoor plants with synthetic plants.

The answer to which of the following would be most useful in evaluating the argument?

The answer to which of the following would be most useful in evaluating the argument?

A. Are synthetic plants replicas of real live plant species, or are they original designs based on common plant forms?

B. Can the efficiency of the photosynthesis of a live indoor plant be affected by the behavior of humans in its surroundings?

C. Do homeowners with live plants spend more than 5% of their overall home expenses on the maintenance of such plants?

D. Are the organic gaseous exchanges of a live plant advantageous to its immediate surrounding environment?

E. What percentage of homeowners are interested in cutting down the costs associated with general home maintenance?

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agrasan · Answer

A. Are synthetic plants replicas of real live plant species, or are they original designs based on common plant forms?
 Not useful , we are already given  ("...synthetic plants being sold today are very realistic in their details and often quite beautiful") , this option doesn't give us any info to evaluate whether these synthetic plants will be beneficial or not.

B. Can the efficiency of the photosynthesis of a live indoor plant be affected by the behavior of humans in its surroundings?
 Not useful , this option doesn't give us any info to evaluate whether these synthetic plants will be beneficial or not.

C. Do homeowners with live plants spend more than 5% of their overall home expenses on the maintenance of such plants?
 Not useful , it doesn't matter what is the proportion of home expenses on maintenance of such plants as the sole focus is to reduce expenses whether the proportion is 50% or 10%.

D. Are the organic gaseous exchanges of a live plant advantageous to its immediate surrounding environment?
 Useful , if gaseous exchange is advantageous then it will reduce the benefit and  weakens  the plan. On the other hand, if gaseous exchange is not advantageous then it will increase the benefit and  strengthens  the plan.

E. What percentage of homeowners are interested in cutting down the costs associated with general home maintenance?
 Not useful , doesn't matter how many homeowners are interested.

svsivakrishna · Answer

I chose option C:  Do homeowners with live plants spend more than 5% of their overall home expenses on the maintenance of such plants?

because the argument starts with "To save time and money on water and maintenance"

So, the goal is to save time and money.

If the amount spent is >5% of overall home expenses, it is significant and if its <5% its not significant amount.

Jaival · Answer

I doubt that.
How can we evaluate what is significant and what's not.
5% without data is arbitrary.

I feel OPTION D.
It shows the extra benefits of live plants other than the monetary, why they shouldn't be replaced

pappal · Answer

well the argument is about reducing the costs related to home maintenance and for which advantages of using artificial plants are discussed.
--only options dealing with this prime issue are C & E.
-- E depicts to compare the percentage interested in cutting down the general maintenance cost and not artificial or live plants.  not useful 
--Its C which states "more than 5%" thus highlighting a lower outlier of the discussed expense. Thus if the value is more than 5%(goes higher) then the strategy is useful otherwise not.
so C IMO

Jaival · Answer

I agree, but how can we judge how much affect 5% holds without being given any facts.
This feels like an assumption. The correct answer is a question which could support or weaken the conclusion and D weakens the author’s conclusion.

rajkoushik17 · Answer

I hope you understood your mistake, whether 5% is signifcant or not is decided by you in your explanation it is not mentioned anywhere in the argument, it may be or it may not be significant so this is not the asnwer choice.

Bunuel · Answer

Official Explanation

To save time and money on water and maintenance, many homeowners are opting for the use of synthetic potted plants, instead of real plants, for the decoration of the interiors of their homes. The synthetic plants being sold today are very realistic in their details and often quite beautiful. Since most homeowners welcome ways to reduce expenses, synthetic plants are increasing in popularity. Because of these benefits, homeowners should replace their live indoor plants with synthetic plants.

The answer to which of the following would be most useful in evaluating the argument?

The answer to which of the following would be most useful in evaluating the argument?

A. Are synthetic plants replicas of real live plant species, or are they original designs based on common plant forms?

Incorrect.

To solve this Investigation question, first break down the argument. The first three sentences provide facts and are hence premises. The last sentence is a recommendation (should) and is, therefore, the argument's conclusion:

Premise A: many people are using fake plants to decorate their homes so that they can save time and money
 +
Premise B: the fake plants available are realistic and often beautiful
 +
Premise C: the fake plants are becoming popular since most homeowners look for ways to cut costs
 =
Conclusion: because of the mentioned benefits, homeowners should use fake plants only

Vital factor: ?

You are required to find the factor which is most crucial to the author's conclusion. The correct answer is a question which could support or weaken the conclusion depeneding on its answer.

This answer choice is irrelevant. The fact that a fake plant's design could be imaginary does not really give us any reason to believe that homeowners should, or should not, replace their live plants with fake ones.

B. Can the efficiency of the photosynthesis of a live indoor plant be affected by the behavior of humans in its surroundings?

Incorrect.

Answering this question would not give us ay direct strengthening or weakening evidence for the conclusion. Too many assumptions would have to be made to link data from this question to a negative aspect of live or fake plants.

C. Do homeowners with live plants spend more than 5% of their overall home expenses on the maintenance of such plants?

Incorrect.

Since no figures are mentioned in the argument, answering this question would not be useful. We cannot just assume that 5% of the total expenses is a large or small amount to spend on maintaining plants.

D. Are the organic gaseous exchanges of a live plant advantageous to its immediate surrounding environment?

Organic gaseous exchange s are something that a plastic plant does not do. If such exchanges are beneficial to a plant's surroundings i.e. a home, then the author's proposal to get rid of such plants is weakened. If such exchanges are insignificant, then the author's proposal is strengthened.

E. What percentage of homeowners are interested in cutting down the costs associated with general home maintenance?

Incorrect.

To solve this Investigation question, first break down the argument. The first three sentences provide facts and are hence premises. The last sentence is a recommendation (should) and is, therefore, the argument's conclusion:

Premise A: many people are using fake plants to decorate their homes so that they can save time and money
 +
Premise B: the fake plants available are realistic and often beautiful
 +
Premise C: the fake plants are becoming popular since most homeowners look for ways to cut costs
 =
Conclusion: because of the mentioned benefits, homeowners should use fake plants only

Vital factor: ?

You are required to find the factor which is most crucial to the author's conclusion. The correct answer is a question which could support or weaken the conclusion depending on its answer.

Asking this question would be unnecessary since we are already told in the last premise that  most homeowners  are interested in cutting down home maintenance expenses. This answer choice does not help us evaluate the recommendation in the conclusion.

To save time and money on water and maintenance, many homeowners are

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To save time and money on water and maintenance, many homeowners are

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