When glass products are made from recycled glass, the resulting produc

Question

When glass products are made from recycled glass, the resulting products can be equal in quality to glass products made from quartz sand, the usual raw material. When plastics are recycled, however, the result is inevitably a plastic of a lower grade than the plastic from which it is derived. Moreover, no applications have been found for grades of plastic that are lower than the currently lowest commercial grade.

Which one of the following is a conclusion that can be properly drawn from the statements above?

(A) Products cannot presently be made out of plastic recycled entirely from the currently lowest commercial grade.

(B) It is impossible to make glass products from recycled glass that are equal in quality to the best glass products made from the usual raw material.

(C) Glass products made from recycled glass are less expensive than comparable products made from quartz sand.

(D) Unless recycled plastic bears some symbol revealing its origin, not even materials scientists can distinguish it from virgin plastic.

(E) The difference in quality between different grades of glass is not as great as that between different grades of plastic.

KissGMAT · Accepted Answer

A Because :

(A) Products cannot presently be made out of plastic recycled entirely from the currently lowest commercial grade.- Correct ( no applications have been found for grades of plastic that are lower than the currently lowest commercial grade.
) However be made vs found is something which is not too clear to relate without any if's and but's.

(E) The difference in quality between different grades of glass is not as great as that between different grades of plastic. -- hey we only discused about two grades of glass, The new glass and the recycled.Who knows there is a range of grades in new glass or even recycled glass.What author is saying is that recycled glass can be made as good new glass but not the same holds for plastic.

Hope this make some sense

weighing A agianst E ------IMO A

varunmaheshwari · Answer

My choice is E.
 Can somebody explain y E is wrong?

onedayill · Answer

Sentence 2 of the passage says that when plastic is recycled the result is a lower grade plastic. 
Sentence 3 says that no applications have been made from plastic that was made from recycling the lowest commercial grade plastic.

Thus, A, if you don't have any applications for recycled lowest grade commercial plastic, then you certainly aren't making products out of it.

(E) This is a very tricky answer, but the passage doesn't give us any idea as to what the variance in the grades of relative quality are.

Hope this helps

suhi · Answer

A, there is no such application of these products in market..it indicates it is possible that plastics cant be made from the currently lowest plastics. though it is an extreme ans yet it seems correct to me.
B, opposes the argument.
C, the argument doesnt talk about cost
D, if the quality is undisguisable even by the scientist, obviously public will not be able to disguish the difference in quality. if it is the case, then why there is no application of worse quality plastics than the current lowest grade plastics.
E, the argument doesn't says anything about the quality difference of glasses. rather it says recycled glasses yield product of the equal quality.that means no difference at all.

Kurtosis · Answer

Hi  chetan2u ,

Can you please explain why A is a better answer than E. The argument does not state that Products cannot be made out of lowest commercial grade plastic. Instead the argument states that there are no uses (applications) from low commercial grade plastic. How can A be the answer in this case.

On the other hand the argument states that recycled glass does not differ much in quality than recycled plastic. Why is E not a right choice?

chetan2u · Answer

Hi,

the Q

lets see thetwo statements--
(A) Products cannot presently be made out of plastic recycled entirely from the currently lowest commercial grade.

the two statements that should be looked into- 
1) When plastics are recycled, however, the result is inevitably a plastic of a lower grade than the plastic from which it is derived.
2) Moreover, no applications have been found for grades of plastic that are lower than the currently lowest commercial grade.
when the currently lowest commercial grade is recycled , the result will be a LOWER grade than the currently lowest commercial grade. But as we see in 2 above, no applications have been found for lower grades than the currently lowest commercial grade. so this means CHOICE A..

(E) The difference in quality between different grades of glass is not as great as that between different grades of plastic
 two reasons for this not to be the answer.. 
1) we are talking of lower plastic grade and the conclusion should be related to what we are moving towards.
2) Even if it can be taken as conclusion, it does not follow naturally from the PARA. Recycled glass is of higher quality and recycled plastic is not. THAT IS IT.
But teh choice encompasses or shifts the scope to different grades and not DIFFERENCE IN QUALITY BETWEEN RAW AND RECYCLED.

JensSudmeier · Answer

I do not agree with this explanation, as in the original text it says "No applications have been found for grades of plastic that are LOWER than the currently lowest commercial grade" - meaning that products from the currently lowest grade could be made!!!

Ale300503 · Answer

I reasoned it the exact same way, and that is why I was left with E) as an answer.
Maybe it is assumed that, after we recycle, the 'grade' gets lower?
Is that the reason why A) is correct?

Can any expert clarify this?

Pranavsawant · Answer

So I think by "product" they are implictly referring to something that has applications. Which.....I'm not sure about tbh if that's a fair thing to be in a question. However, option E is clearly wrong because we know absolutely nothing about variance based on just a limited sample size of recycled vs virgin plastic/glass. So A by POE

glagad · Answer

My contention with A is that - The passage says that there are no applications of the lower grade plastics, but that doesnt deny the fact that Products can't be made. It only means, imo, that Products made from recycled plastic aren't usable because of its low quality, since there are no applications of it found.

hr1212 · Answer

I agree. "No applications" and "no products can be made" are not directly equivalent, since the argument leaves room for interpretation. Still, I believe it is the best available option that aligns with the overall direction of the discussion, especially when the other choices are completely off. On the GMAT, these kinds of questions often test your ability to follow the flow of reasoning rather than find an exact match in wording. That said, you are unlikely to see too many of these during your test, except maybe a few experimental ones if you are unlucky.

glagad

My contention with A is that - The passage says that there are no applications of the lower grade plastics, but that doesnt deny the fact that Products can't be made. It only means, imo, that Products made from recycled plastic aren't usable because of its low quality, since there are no applications of it found.

gemministorm · Answer

(A) Products cannot presently be made out of plastic recycled entirely from the currently lowest commercial grade.
But this is like another assumption...
Products can/cannot presently be made is one thing and application of that product is another.....

egmat · Answer

What the Passage Says 
 
 When you recycle plastic, you always get worse quality plastic 
 The lowest commercial grade is the worst plastic we can actually use for anything 
 Nobody has found ANY use for plastic worse than the lowest grade

What Happens If You Recycle the Lowest Grade?
 You recycle the lowest grade → you get an even worse grade of plastic
But wait... the passage just told us nobody has found any use for plastic worse than the lowest grade.
So now you have this plastic that literally cannot be used for anything.

Why A is Right
 A says: "Products cannot presently be made out of plastic recycled from the lowest grade."

Think about it: if you can't use that plastic for anything (no applications = no uses), how do you make a product out of it?
You can't make a water bottle—it won't work. 
You can't make a toy—it won't work. 
You can't make anything useful—because it has no uses.

Your Concern
 You're saying: "But can't you technically still make  something  even if it's useless?"
Sure, you could melt it and shape it. But is that a product? Not really. A product needs to do something, needs to be useful for something. If it has zero uses, it's just garbage, not a product.

Bottom Line
 No uses = no products. That's not an assumption. That's just what the word "product" means.

autemitaque · Answer

I chose E because -
1. It does talk about two different grades here, quart and recycled glass. They both are equal in quality. 
2. Plastic grades are also talked about for one plastic grade that was used the first time -> second time usage is the recycled grade which is a lower grade and is different than the first grade.

Therefore it fulfils that there's not as much difference in quality for grades of glass than plastic grades.

where is this wrong?

mkeshri185 · Answer

I am absolutely shocked with the answer. It only says that there is no application of plastic made from the lowest grade. It never says we can't make it. There is a huge difference between both. It would be correct if the option would be something like . It doesn't make sense to make plastic from the lowest grade plastic'. But whether making it is possible or not is never discussed. There may be so many technologies to make it. It only and only says that there is no application of doing so means it is so bad we can't use it for any purpose. But yeah we can surely make it may be even from the same process of recycling.

I would like to give one example. Drinking poison has no application for a sane people. Does it mean a person can't drink the poison?

egmat · Answer

The passage says recycled glass  CAN BE  equal in quality to quartz glass.
Not "always is equal." Just "can be."

Why we can't conclude E:
 E says glass quality differences are smaller than plastic quality differences. But we don't have enough information to know this.

Scenario 1: E could be true 
 
 Glass: recycled glass is always 95-100% as good as quartz glass (tiny difference) 
 Plastic: recycled plastic is 50% as good as original (big difference) 
 Result: Glass differences are smaller

Scenario 2: E could be false 
 
 Glass: recycled glass is sometimes 100% as good, but sometimes only 20% as good as quartz glass (huge range) 
 Plastic: recycled plastic is always 95% as good as original (small, consistent drop) 
 Result: Glass differences are bigger

Both scenarios fit what the passage tells us. The passage only says glass "can be" equal (doesn't tell us the worst case) and plastic is "lower grade" (doesn't tell us by how much).
Since both scenarios are possible based on the passage, we can't conclude E is definitely true. The passage doesn't give us enough information about the actual size of quality differences for either material.

Joe258 · Answer

Hi egmat,

Thank you so much for pointing this out! It was also the point that made E so tempting. The fact that glass products made from recycled glass CAN BE of similar quality does not guarantee that the recycled products are always similar or very close in quality (could be anything from 0-100%). In the other hand, recycled plastic products HAVE TO BE of lower quality than the worst plastic products that are created from raw mats (anything from 0-99.99... %). However, we need more specific details to conclude which ones have bigger/smaller differences in quality; therefore, not inferable.

Though, it was really hard for me to accept that anything less than the worst product is certainly not a product. It is very extreme as it requires you to understand the definition of a product. Does a product have to be of any use to be called a product? A product of a chemical reaction is also a product, but its usefulness is dependent on the chemist's judgment.

Anyways, I love your elaboration of the answer choice E.

When glass products are made from recycled glass, the resulting produc

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When glass products are made from recycled glass, the resulting produc

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