Critical Reasoning

The earth's resources are being depleted much too fast. To correct this, the United States must keep its resource consumption at present levels for many years to come.

The argument above depends on which of the following assumptions?
(A) Per capita resource consumption in the United States is at an all-time high.
(B) The United States wastes resources.
(C) The United States uses more resources than any other country.
(D) The United States imports most of the resources it uses.
(E) Curbing U.S. resource consumption will significantly retard world resource depletion.

OA E - Why not C

C - THE ARG DOES NOT STATE THE QTY OF RESOURCES CONSUMED. WE DO HAVE A DEFINITE YES FOR THIS ANSWER

Ans is E.

Try negation here.

(C) The United States uses more resources than any other country. >> One or many countries use more resources than the US.

so what? US can still be a close second? Thus it still makes sense that the US should keep its resource consumption at present levels for many years to come.

Now let's try it for E.

(E) Curbing U.S. resource consumption will significantly retard world resource depletion.
>>(E) Curbing U.S. resource consumption will NOT significantly retard world resource depletion.

if so, then what's the use of enforcing all these measures? The argument breaks down here. Hence E should be a strong assumption.

Hope it helps!!!

Deutsch750

I agree, don't know what I was thinking.....

dream700 wrote:Ans is E.

Try negation here.

(C) The United States uses more resources than any other country. >> One or many countries use more resources than the US.

so what? US can still be a close second? Thus it still makes sense that the US should keep its resource consumption at present levels for many years to come.

Now let's try it for E.

(E) Curbing U.S. resource consumption will significantly retard world resource depletion.
>>(E) Curbing U.S. resource consumption will NOT significantly retard world resource depletion.

if so, then what's the use of enforcing all these measures? The argument breaks down here. Hence E should be a strong assumption.

Hope it helps!!!

Deutsch750

Think of it this way:

I have a bottle of scotch and it is getting day by day. To stop the scotch from disappearing I should stop drinking.

Assumption in above statement would be that I am the only one drinking from scotch and no body else in my house drinks scotch.

earths resource = bottle of scotch
consumption = drinking

(E)