Uri wrote: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.

Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument above?
(A) New resource deposits are constantly being discovered.
(B) The United States consumes one-third of all resources used in the world.
(C) Other countries need economic development more than the United States does.
(D) Other countries have agreed to hold their resource consumption at present levels.
(E) The United States has been conserving resources for several years.

Please explain your line of reasoning.

OA: [spoiler](B)[/spoiler]

Thanks.

My first post
IMO- B .

Here is how I would eliminate the rest of the options :

A. If new resources are being constantly discovered,then there is no need for the US to keep a check on their resource comsumption. This option weakens the argument.

C. According to me this option teaches an important lesson :
More countries need economic development- There is no reason to believe so . Do not use your prejudice in this option that US doesnt need more development as compared to other countries. Approach the question as if United states is Country X which you have never heard of in that case you can tell that there is no reason to prove that other countries need more development.

D. Other countries have put a check on the resource consumption but does it imply the United States also needs to do so . It is possible that other countries 's present level of consumption is 50 times that of US .In that case by US putting a check on its consumption does not help World's cause too much.

E.Since its been conserving resources for several yrs it might already be judicious in using its resources is what this option suggests which is not suggested anywhere in the argument and cant be verified ,if it were the case the world resources would not have been threatened.

B. Since US takes 1/3rd of the share of consumption,this indicates that US is one of the major shareholder in consumption and maintaining current levels is the least it can do to prevent the resources from depleting at a faster rate. This is the only option which strengthens the argument to some extent.

Though the post is too late, I find the question's OA very ambiguous. The ans is (b), although I find (d) more tempting. Even if USA consumes 1/3 of the resources, we can still have any other country consuming say 35% of the net resources, thus making USA the second biggest consumer. If this is the case, then curbing just USA consumption wont help stabilizing the resources; depletion.
But if (d) is true i.e. the other countries have agreed to stabilize their consumption of resources and if USA also do so, we can definitely see a stabilization of consumption of worldwide resources.
Please if any expert can comment on the same.

I also ended up choosing D for the following reason

Conclusion " US must keep consumption at current level for years to come to stop depleting resources.

Based on this, if option B were to be correct, 66% of the remaining resources are used by other coutnries, so, even if US maintains its level, what is to say that other countries will do the same?

Option D ensures that all countries will maintain same levle of consumption there by strengthening the author's conclusion ??

Can you please let me know where I am missing out..

Thanks

Choice D would actually weaken.

The conclusion here is that the United States must keep its consumption stable in order to correct the depletion of resources.

If other countries (who make up two-thirds of resource consumption, as you noted) are already holding their consumption steady, then there is less reason that the United States must also do so.

Very satisfying objective!!!

Specifically the U.S. consumes 30 percent of the world's resources despite making up only 5 percent of the world's population.