#25 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Purpose/Function

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[Overthinker99]

Why is "E" incorrect? The first sentence of the last paragraph seems to be introducing the main point: the evidence supporting the environmentalists claims are weak (implying they are there). The author then continues to illustrate how the various sources are, at best, inconclusive. "E" seems to sum that up rather nicely (admittedly, it would have been better to say "to show the evidence is inconclusive); It is also better than B, which gives a vague and ambiguous description by saying "critically examine," which could be positive or negative and does not capture the actual purpose of explicit criticism.

[Adam Tyson]

Good question, Overthinker99! Answer E is very attractive. The problem with it is that it doesn't accurately express what the author is doing. To "question the sources of evidence" is to raise doubts about the truthfulness or credibility of whoever provided that evidence. In Flaw in the Reasoning questions, we refer to that as a Source Argument, also known as an ad hominem. That's attacking the person or group that made certain claims, rather than attacking the claims themselves.

Our author didn't do that. They did not suggest that the studies regarding the exports promotion hypothesis were improperly conducted, or that the researchers who did them could not be trusted to get it right. Instead, the author raised questions about their results. When it came to the environmental impact of debt, there was no mention of any source of the evidence; the author simply said that we haven't studied it enough yet. And when they discussed the domestic spending argument, they only suggested that they might be other possible outcomes, which has nothing to do with the source of the argument they were examining.

Answer B is a more accurate description of what happened in that paragraph, even if it may not convey the results of that examination. The purpose was to conduct that examination; the conclusion of that examination was that the evidence is weak.