Logical reasoning PrepTest 156 · Section 2 · Question 23

As expected, this answer choice links the harm a resource causes society to the harm it causes the environment. In linking those harms, this answer choice makes the argument valid. The argument's premises establish that the sound management of a resource requires consumers to pay for the resource's unintended and harmful consequences to society. If (A) is true, these unintended and harmful consequences to society also include unintended and harmful consequences to the environment. So, (A) establishes that the sound management of a resource requires the price consumers pay to reflect the resource's unintended and harmful consequences to the environment, as the argument concludes.

Because this answer choice is consistent with our anticipation and validates the conclusion, we can select (A) confidently and give the remaining answer choices an, at most, quick glance.

This answer choice doesn't link the new term in the argument's conclusion ("unintended harm to the environment") to one of the premises. Because this answer choice doesn't include that new term, it doesn't fix the problem in this argument. Even if a resource's price always includes externalities, we don't know that those externalities include the resource's unintended environmental harm. After all, the premises only establish that the externalities include a resource's unintended harm to society.

This is definitely a necessary assumption in this argument. For a resource's price to reflect its unintended harm to society and the environment, we'll need to know that we can predict its effects. If we couldn't predict that, we couldn't make the price reflect those harmful effects.

However, this isn't a sufficient assumption in this argument. This answer choice doesn't make this conclusion valid. Just because we can predict the effects of using a resource when setting its price doesn't mean we'll include its harmful consequences to the environment. We may only include the harmful consequences to society. Therefore, (C) doesn't fix the problem in this argument.

Like (B), this answer choice doesn't link the new term in the argument's conclusion ("unintended harm to the environment") to one of the premises. Without addressing the new term from the conclusion, this answer choice can't fix the problem in this argument. Even if we can assess the externalities in all soundly managed resources, that doesn't mean we assess the unintended harm to the environment. After all, the premises only establish that the externalities include a resource's unintended harm to society. So, soundly managed resources may not assess or include the harm to the environment in their assessments.

Like (B) and (D), this answer choice doesn't link the new term in the argument's conclusion ("unintended harm to the environment") to one of the premises. Since this answer choice doesn't tell us about this new term, it doesn't fix the problem in this argument.