alimad wrote:
Wind farms, which generate electricity using arrays of thousands of wind-powered
turbines, require vast expanses of open land. County X and County Y have similar
terrain, but the population density of County X is significantly higher than that of County
Y. Therefore, a wind farm proposed for one of the two counties should be built in
County Y rather than in County X.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the planner’s argument?
A. County X and County Y are adjacent to each other, and both are located in the
windiest area of the state.
B. The total population of County Y is substantially greater than that of County X.
C. Some of the electricity generated by wind farms in County Y would be purchased
by users outside the county.
D. Wind farms require more land per unit of electricity generated than does any other
type of electrical-generation facility.
E. Nearly all of County X’s population is concentrated in a small part of the county,
while County Y’s population is spread evenly throughout the country.
I can only see E because none of the other answers seriously undermines the argument. I'll wait for your comments.
This is C.
X's population is denser. Thus, Wind farms should be built in Y.
A: Irrelevant
B: This is tempting but doesn't really explain why the mill's should not be built in Y. This requires us to make additional assumptions about greater population.
D: Doesn't weaken, both have the same land mass.
E. Says that population is very dense in one spot for X, but Y is spread out.
Just think of any state with a mega-major city: Illinois . Has Chicago and... thats about it. Chicago contains the majority of the population of Illinois. Now lets compare to say Ohio. Ohio has several major cities, but nothing compared to Chicago. And Ohio's pop is about equal but spread out. Assuming both have same land mass, its easy to see why Ohio would be a worse place to put wind mills.
Now judging from your comments, I can see that E is probably not the answer.
So I say C. The argument assumes that electricity will be purchased outside of Y. I thought this might be something that COULD weaken the argument, but this doesn't really follow the premises as E does. E perfectly explains why its not a good idea to put the mills in Y.
However, we must remember that when weakening the argument, we have to look for two types of choices: one that produces a piece of weakening evidence or one that exposes a faulty assumption.
The argument assumes that both countries will share electricity. This is why choice C is correct.
However, come test day Id still say E. Both are plausible. I guess E just requires us to assume that sparse population means worse for windmilss. This is a very iffy CR if you ask me.
Whoops made an error, fixed it in my reasoning for E with the above example of Ohio and Illinois.