Logical reasoning PrepTest 142 · Section 4 · Question 6

Incorrect. The relevant difference in the argument is that human-driven climate change is presumably under our control, and so we can make it less extreme than natural climate change. That doesn't rely on human-driven climate change being inherently less damaging—in fact, in stating that the opportunity is for us to decrease the extreme nature, it's implying that the degree of climate change is more important in determining damage than the cause of it.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Necessary Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Human behavior responsible for climate change → Control future climate change to be less damaging
Therefore: Human-caused climate change is an opportunity, not a problem

Answer Anticipation:
Honestly, we're a bit at a loss on this one! Looking through the argument, there aren't any obvious gaps that we can see. However, there is a concept that does tend to show up in the relevant logic—the idea of responsibility. Let's look for answers that deal with this behavior that might be responsible for climate change, as we know from past experience that concept is frequently tested.

Answer Explanation:
If humans can't control the behavior that's causing climate change, then the conditional established in the premise falls apart. While rare, this answer reflects something necessary for a premise to be true, and thus it's necessary for the argument to work.

Key Takeaway:
This question is a bit of an odd duck as far as how the correct answer relates to the stimulus. We wouldn't take too much away from this, as it's a fairly unique question in that regard. However, even with that weirdness, the correct answer—when negated—killed the argument, so don't forget to rely on the negation test for Strengthen with Necessary Premise questions!

Incorrect. Even if no previous large-scale climate changes were human driven, the current one could be and thus could be controllable, decreasing the extremity of it.

Incorrect. Other species and the damage posed to them are out of scope of the argument—neither those species nor damage is brought up.

Incorrect. While human behavior would need to be both identified and changed to take advantage of the opportunity mentioned in the stimulus, the relative difficulty is out of scope and thus can't be a required assumption.