Critical Reasoning

Advocate: Millions of plastic shopping bags are discarded every day in the United States. Plastic bags present a problem for the environment because they do not readily decompose, but will remain intact for thousands of years. Policy makers agree that the best solution to the problem is to convince people to bring their own shopping bags so that they do not need disposable plastic bags. Therefore, the U.S. government should implement a tax on disposable plastic bags because this will have the desired effect of dramatically decreasing the number of plastic bags discarded each day in the United States.

Which of the following provides the strongest reason to believe that the plan to levy a tax on disposable plastic bags will be successful in greatly reducing the number of plastic bags being discarded?

A similar tax in several European countries resulted in a 90% decrease in the number of plastic bags used by consumers each year.

Current incentives, such as crediting customers 5 or 10 cents for each reusable bag, have resulted in only a small decrease in the number of plastic bags discarded.

Some customers are very concerned about the environmental impacts of plastic bags and will bring reusable bags without any financial incentive.

The bill has substantial support with the Congressional delegations of many states and with the current administration.

The bill could be implemented and the tax collected using a very simple addition to the programming of electronic cash registers.

I am happy to discuss this one.

What is controversial about it? The subject matter or the official answer?

F

David@VeritasPrep wrote:I am happy to discuss this one.

What is controversial about it? The subject matter or the official answer?

OA is controversial.

How can a similar tax in SOme other countries SUPPORT the statement?

I see that a couple of people have posted this question here or on GMATClub and have disagreed with the answer. That is fine, it is not an official question and you have the right to disagree with it.

I will say that on this question 75% of the over 1600 people who have answered this one on the Veritas Question Bank chose the OA A.

Here is a long discussion of this question.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/a-tax-on-dis ... 37113.html

David@VeritasPrep wrote:I see that a couple of people have posted this question here or on GMATClub and have disagreed with the answer. That is fine, it is not an official question and you have the right to disagree with it.

I will say that on this question 75% of the over 1600 people who have answered this one on the Veritas Question Bank chose the OA A.

Here is a long discussion of this question.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/a-tax-on-dis ... 37113.html

Just one point, Has GMAT used any similar reasoning in any Official Q?
Have you seen any similar reasoned PLAN Q anywhere on the GMAT official q?
Please share.

Just one point, Has GMAT used any similar reasoning in any Official Q?
Have you seen any similar reasoned PLAN Q anywhere on the GMAT official q?
Please share.

Many unofficial questions are copies of official questions. This is not a copy of an official question. So I cannot share any official question that it is based on.

You are free to disagree with the answer or with the entire question. I think that this question has a logical - if not difficult - answer. But whenever I work with unofficial questions I always reserve the right to disagree with them. So if you want to ignore this question or even strongly disagree with the question you should certainly do so.

I am not here to argue with you. If this question - or any question - does not help your studies then you shouldn't use it.

I just want to point out that whether or not a question is specifically based on an official question it can still be logical. It seems logical that if a tax reduced 90% of bags in Europe that such a tax would have at least some substantial impact in the U.S.