Critical Reasoning

Brochure: Help conserve our city’s water supply. By converting the landscaping in your yard to a water-conserving landscape, you can greatly reduce your outdoor water use. A water-conserving landscape is natural and attractive, and it also saves you money.

Criticism: For most people with yards, the savings from converting to a water-conserving landscape cannot justify the expense of new landscaping, since typically the conversion would save less than twenty dollars on a homeowner’s yearly water bills.

Which of the following, if true, provides the best basis for a rebuttal of the criticism?

A. Even homeowners whose yards do not have water-conserving landscapes can conserve water by installing water-saving devices in their homes.
B. A conventional landscape generally requires a much greater expenditure on fertilizer and herbicide than does a water-conserving landscape.
C. A significant proportion of the residents of the city live in buildings that do not have yards.
D. It costs no more to put in water-conserving landscaping than it does to put in conventional landscaping.
E. Some homeowners use more water to maintain their yards than they use for all other purposes combined.



OA B

Please expain

it should be B
rebutal of criticism means....weaken the sol.
means we want to prove it is beneficial to convert the landscape, as conventional landscape costs more ...this has been stated in B.
So, converting them to water landscape would be more beneficial

WHY NOT D

It's not D because the passage is talking about converting people to a water conserving landscape vs. people who have not yet invested in either regular landscaping or water conserving.

The criticism is basically if someone already has regular landscaping in their yard, why would someone deal with the additional expense of doing an overhaul and switching to water conserving landscaping when they'll only save a paltry 20 bucks a year.

Answer B is correct because it attacks the criticism by explaining how the savings come from more than just the water bill and thus possibly justifies the expense of the switch.

canada_sms wrote:It's not D because the passage is talking about converting people to a water conserving landscape vs. people who have not yet invested in either regular landscaping or water conserving.

The criticism is basically if someone already has regular landscaping in their yard, why would someone deal with the additional expense of doing an overhaul and switching to water conserving landscaping when they'll only save a paltry 20 bucks a year.

Answer B is correct because it attacks the criticism by explaining how the savings come from more than just the water bill and thus possibly justifies the expense of the switch.

Great explanation Canada!

canada_sms wrote:It's not D because the passage is talking about converting people to a water conserving landscape vs. people who have not yet invested in either regular landscaping or water conserving.

The criticism is basically if someone already has regular landscaping in their yard, why would someone deal with the additional expense of doing an overhaul and switching to water conserving landscaping when they'll only save a paltry 20 bucks a year.

Answer B is correct because it attacks the criticism by explaining how the savings come from more than just the water bill and thus possibly justifies the expense of the switch.

I chose B,

But the CONVENTIONAL was putting me off !

CONVENTIONAL means "status-quo". For example, we might have a "conventional" approach to a problem or a "novel" one.

I understood your explanation for choosing B. But here is my logic behind D.

What if the expense for setting up a water - conserved landscape is so huge that the cost savings from pesticides is negligible.
Assumption:
like if the cost for setting up water- cons. landscape is $10,000
and cost for setting traditional landscape is say $2,000
Cost saving in pesticides should definitely be less than this amount.
Case 1:
If one already has a landscape then they would definitely not prefer ripping off the current landscape and change over to water landscape just for saving a few bugs on pesticides and water.
Case 2:
If one does not have a landscape already in place then they will need to know the cost of traditional landscape before making a decision. since D says the cost of both traditional and water landscape are the same , it will help to decide .

My point is we should know the cost of traditional and water landscape to make a decision so i would think D is a better option.

1.My point is we should know the cost of traditional and water landscape to make a decision so i would think D is a better option.-which is not necessary since the question actually speaking about
By converting the landscaping in your yard to a water-conserving landscape, you can greatly reduce your outdoor water use
No where here it is mentioned about the cost of new one .The argument talks about replacing the conventional ones with water conserving ones.


2.D says no more it cost-probably same value for both lands
What will be the saving after it is set up.Cost is 100$ and saving is 15$ for water
Cost is 100$ saving is 5$ for land

Since the criticism is about saving money for convention correct answer is B

Just my 2 cents

dont you guys think that option d somehow strengthen the argument...

Any thoughts on my point above?

nice explanation but i am still little bit confused

logitech wrote:

canada_sms wrote:It's not D because the passage is talking about converting people to a water conserving landscape vs. people who have not yet invested in either regular landscaping or water conserving.

The criticism is basically if someone already has regular landscaping in their yard, why would someone deal with the additional expense of doing an overhaul and switching to water conserving landscaping when they'll only save a paltry 20 bucks a year.

Answer B is correct because it attacks the criticism by explaining how the savings come from more than just the water bill and thus possibly justifies the expense of the switch.

Great explanation Canada!

Hey guys, just saw this question today and the OA is C.

Can experts pls explain why this is true?

OA is B. But why not E?