Carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to

Question

Carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to the warming of the planet, which has melted ice in the Arctic Circle and unearthed caves and waterways that were previously inaccessible due to ice. Scientists researching these areas have found stores of carbon that had been trapped in the permafrost of these caves, and that are now being spread into the atmosphere by bacteria as the permafrost melts.

Which of the following can best be concluded by the information above?

A. The rate at which carbon is being released into the atmosphere is increasing.

B. Previously frozen carbon from permafrost will someday pose more of a threat to the environment than the carbon released from the burning of fossil fuels.

C. The amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere cannot be determined simply by calculating the amount of fossil fuel being burned.

D. The amount of carbon released into the atmosphere will increase until humans stop burning fossil fuels.

E. The amount of carbon released into the atmosphere from melting permafrost is about equal to the amount released from the burning of fossil fuels.

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Sonatomar · Answer

The amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere cannot be determined simply by calculating the amount of fossil fuel being burned.
This follows directly.
Why?
Suppose we calculate:
"Humans burned X amount of fossil fuel."
That doesn't tell us the total carbon entering the atmosphere, because melting permafrost is also releasing carbon.
So:
Total atmospheric carbon is not just fossil-fuel carbon.

Vivek1707 · Answer

A. The passage never says the rate of carbon release is increasing—only that an additional source of carbon has been discovered.
B. There's no comparison between carbon from permafrost and carbon from fossil fuels.
C. Correct The passage identifies another source of atmospheric carbon besides fossil fuels. So you can't determine total carbon emissions just by looking at fossil fuel use.
D. The passage doesn't say carbon release will continue until fossil fuel burning stops. That's too strong.
E. There's no information comparing the amounts of carbon released from the two sources.

pappal · Answer

the passage nowhere intended to conclude what is mentioned in options B,D,E.
A seems a good conclusion but not the best when read together with C ,which seems the best choice since the passage talks about the fossil carbon resulting in more carbon from permafrost, thus by mere calculating the fossil carbon wouldn't give the gross increase.
C

Bunuel · Answer

Veritas Prep Official Explanation

With Inference questions, the correct answer must meet the "must be true" standard, which means that you should attack each answer choice via process-of-elimination. Also note that when you have prior knowledge of the subject matter of a question and/or when you have a strong opinion about a topic (as many do with topics such as the environment), you must take care to avoid "mental inertia" - you can only decide on an answer choice based on what is explicitly given in the stimulus.

With choice A, pay attention to the specific wording that the "rate at which carbon is being released" is increasing (NOT "the amount of carbon is increasing"). While it might seem likely that the addition of a new source of carbon would increase the rate, you cannot prove this from the information given (what if a combination of more fuel-efficient vehicles and fewer people driving has dramatically cut down auto emissions by more than the newly unfrozen carbon is being released?).

With choice B, you can use similar logic: you just don't know how much carbon is in the permafrost (at least not from the stimulus) and you cannot rule out a massive surge in the burning of fossil fuels. (Also note - predictions far into the future are really hard to prove. What if an asteroid blows the whole planet up next week? Even if the trend were heading in this direction, that would render the prediction untrue!)

Choice C is correct: the stimulus proves that now there is (at least) a second source of carbon emissions, so calculating the amount from just one of those sources will not give an accurate statistic.

Choice D doesn't have to be true (what if someone invents a "carbon vacuum" to clean the air?). And choice E is also incorrect - you know now that there are two sources of carbon, but do not have nearly enough information to declare that the two sources are equal in the amount of carbon they release.

TheAdmissionHub · Answer

Carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to the warming of the planet, which has melted ice in the Arctic Circle and unearthed caves and waterways that were previously inaccessible due to ice. Scientists researching these areas have found stores of carbon that had been trapped in the permafrost of these caves, and that are now being spread into the atmosphere by bacteria as the permafrost melts.
 Premise 1 : Carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to the warming of the planet, which has melted ice in the Arctic Circle and unearthed caves and waterways that were previously inaccessible due to ice
Premise 2: Scientists researching these areas have found stores of carbon that had been trapped in the permafrost of these caves, and that are now being spread into the atmosphere by bacteria as the permafrost melts.

Which of the following can best be concluded by the information above?
  
  A.  The rate at which carbon is being released into the atmosphere is increasing. 
 Wrong:  the rate is not discussed, so info is not supported.  We just know that there are two souces  emitting carbon pollution now: fossil fuels, and permafrost releasing stores of carbon
 
  B . Previously frozen carbon from permafrost will someday pose more of a threat to the environment than the carbon released from the burning of fossil fuels.
 Wrong:  the level of threat is not mentioned. We cannot do predictions about this. The author gave us two facts; predicting the future would be  going too far  
 
  C.  The amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere cannot be determined simply by calculating the amount of fossil fuel being burned.
 Correct:  this is the right answer. In the first premise we are said that carbon pollution is produced by fossil fuels. Then, another possible source of carbon pollutionis added, Hence we should consider both to calculate it, just the first is not enough.
 
  D.  The amount of carbon released into the atmosphere will increase until humans stop burning fossil fuels.
 Wrong:  we don’t know nothing about the rate and future predictions cannot be made according to these two fact. It is something unsupported by our text
 
  E.  The amount of carbon released into the atmosphere from melting permafrost is about equal to the amount released from the burning of fossil fuels.
 Wrong:  equal quantities is not mentioned. It’s an add up but we cannot know how much of them we do have.

Carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to

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Carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to

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

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