#25 - Oceanographer: To substantially reduce the amount of

[jw190]

Hey there jw, let me see if I can help. When using the Negation Technique on an answer choice that contains conditional reasoning, the negation of that answer will tell you that the necessary condition is not, in fact, necessary. Here, in answer E, the sufficient condition is "we should pump CO2 into the deep ocean to reduce it in the atmosphere"; the necessary condition is "it would be trapped for hundreds of years." The negation would tell us that it is not necessary for it to be trapped for hundreds of years: "We should do it even if it won't trap it for hundreds of years." Does "we should do it even if it won't trap it" wreck the claim that we should do it? Not at all! That's why we can reject answer E. Also, more to the point, we reject it because answer C is better, and we are charged with selecting the best answer!

Please let us know if you need further clarification. Meanwhile, try that "even if it's not necessary" approach on negating conditional statements, and you should find it pretty powerful and useful.

Good luck!

This makes a lot more sense than how I was trying to reason through it! Here's how I'm now seeing it:

We already know the author thinks we should do it; negating (E) just seems to give us another reason to do it, which definitely doesn't hurt the author's conclusion / argument. Thank you so much for your response!