Critical Reasoning

Beverage company representative: The plastic rings that hold six-packs of beverage cans together pose a threat to wild animals, which often become entangled in the discarded rings and suffocate as a result. Following our lead, all beverage companies will soon use only those rings consisting of a new plastic that disintegrates after only three days’ exposure to sunlight. Once we all complete the switchover from the old to the new plastic rings, therefore, the threat of suffocation that plastic rings pose to wild animals will be eliminated.
11. The argument depends on which one of the following assumptions?
(A) None of the new plastic rings can disintegrate after only two days’ exposure to sunlight.
(B) The switchover to the new plastic rings can be completed without causing significant financial hardship to the beverage companies.
(C) Wild animals will not become entangled in the new plastic rings before the rings have had sufficient exposure to sunlight to disintegrate.
(D) Use of the old plastic rings poses no substantial threat to wild animals other than that of suffocation.
(E) Any wild animal that becomes entangled in the old plastic rings will suffocate as a result.
12. Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the representative’s argument?
(A) The switchover to the new plastic rings will take at least two more years to complete.
(B) After the beverage companies have switched over to the new plastic rings, a substantial number of the old plastic rings will persist in most aquatic and woodland environments.
(C) The new plastic rings are slightly less expensive than the old rings.
(D) The new plastic rings rarely disintegrate during shipping of beverage six-packs because most trucks that transport canned beverages protect their cargo from sunlight.
(E) The new plastic rings disintegrate into substances that are harmful to aquatic animals when ingested in substantial quantities by them.


OA' are C and B.