#9 - CEO: We have been falsely criticized for not being an

[miriamson07]

Hello Powerscore,

I was struggling between E and C, but chose answer choice C. My reasoning was as follows:

the specific criticism = the company is not doing all they can to pollute less

the class of criticisms = all of the other criticisms that need to be null in order for a company to be environmentally responsible

But in hindsight, I can think of 2 reasons this wouldn’t be the best answer choice:
1. we need to assume that there are other conditions required for a company to be environmentally responsible that aren’t explicitly mentioned in the stimulus
2. we need to assume that the company is in fact doing all they can to pollute less

Although I can see these reasons in hindsight, when I’m solving a question during the test, it can be more difficult to weigh which answer choice’s assumptions are “worse”… nevertheless, I’d appreciate your thoughts on whether my reasoning is correct. Thank you!

[Amber Thomas]

Hi Miriamson!

Let's start by breaking down our stimulus:

Premise 2: Environmentally responsible corporations do all they can to pollute less.
Premise 3: Our current methods produce significantly less pollution than did our old methods.
Premise 4: There are currently no methods that do not produce any pollution.
Conclusion: We are being unfairly criticized for not being an environmentally responsible corporation.

The key discrepancy here is between "doing all you can to pollute less" and "polluting less." To be environmentally responsible, corporations must to everything they can to pollute less. So, just because this corporation is polluting less than they used to, doesn't mean that they are doing everything they can to pollute as little as possible. The CEO didn't state that they were using the current methods to produce the least pollution possible. Rather, they only state that there is no way to produce zero pollution. "As little pollution as possible" and "zero pollution" are two very different things.

I hope this helps!