Reading comp PrepTest 157 · Section 1 · Question 21

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Environmentalists' conclusion on debt/low quality of life and premises ("exports promotion hypothesis" holds that debt causes nations to harm their environments by producing many exports; governments reduce domestic spending)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Some environmentalists' views:
    • The international debt a nation carries lowers its quality of life, as repaying the debt depletes national resources, increases pollution, and decreases domestic spending (first and second sentences)
  • List of two reasons international debt lowers a nation's quality of life, according to some environmentalists:
    • "Exports promotion hypothesis": Nations shift their focus to exporting many goods, which causes more environmental damage than domestic goods (third through fifth sentences)
    • The government spends less on domestic services like healthcare, education, water, and sanitation when it carries a high debt (seventh and eighth sentences)
  • Example of the "exports promotion hypothesis," according to some environmentalists:
    • A nation might cut down forests for timber or open up land to plant cash crops (sixth sentence)
  • Example of how reducing domestic spending could harm a nation's quality of life, according to some environmentalists:
    • The government eliminates subsidies for practices that reduce pollution or conserve resources (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • The author's criticism that the evidence for the environmentalists' claims (some studies don't show a correlation between debt/deforestation; cutting domestic spending can help the environment)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Author's view:
    • The environmentalists' evidence is weak, as studies do not show a consistent correlation between debt and deforestation or pollution, and reigning in domestic spending can help the environment (first through fifth sentences)
    • So, we don't know whether a nation's quality of life is connected to the size of its debt (seventh sentence)
  • Example of how reducing domestic spending could not harm a nation's quality of life, according to the author:
    • The government might decide to abandon plans to build new dams or roads or to eliminate subsidies that promote fertilizer or pesticide use (sixth sentences sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "weak" (first sentence); "indicates that" (second sentence); "only a slight positive correlation" (third sentence); "in fact" (third sentence); "it is just as likely" (fifth sentence); "must be considered unknown" (seventh sentence); "a case could be made" (last sentence); "may rein in potentially harmful spending" (last sentence)

There is very little evidence to support some environmentalists' claim that the more international debt a nation carries, the more its quality of life suffers.

Criticizing a Viewpoint: We think this passage best fits the Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure.* In such a passage, the author describes a view held by another person or group and then criticizes that view. Importantly, the author's argument should focus primarily on why the view is wrong, unjustified, or misguided.

And that's what the author does in this passage. The author focuses on the "weak" evidence for the environmentalists' argument about the relationship between a nation's international debt and quality of life (P2, S1). The author points out that there is very little evidence to support the environmentalists' claims that debt leads to deforestation and pollution or that a reduction in domestic spending will necessarily harm a nation's quality of life. In other words, the author focuses on why the environmentalists' conclusion is unjustified by the available evidence.

When a passage uses a Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure, the main point is generally the author's central criticism. So, the main point of this passage is relatively straightforward: "There is very little evidence to support some environmentalists' claim that the more international debt a nation carries, the more its quality of life suffers."

*As is often the case for passages that fall into the Critical Meta-Structure family, several other major Critical Meta-Structures could describe this passage. If you labeled this as a Rebutting Critics or Correcting the Record passage, you would still develop a valuable understanding of the passage's main point and structure.

This author takes issue with the environmentalists' evidence. Does this mean that the author thinks that the environmentalists' conclusion is false? That international debt doesn't reduce a nation's quality of life?

Nope. We have no idea whether international debt reduces a nation's quality of life. We only know that the environmentalists' haven't proven that claim. This idea is often tested on the Logical Reasoning section of the LSAT, too, so let’s dig into it.

Sometimes, this line of flawed reasoning is referred to as the "absence of evidence" flaw. Disproving someone's evidence doesn't disprove their conclusion. And that's because people sometimes support true conclusions with bad evidence. One could say, "We can conclude that a diet full of fruits and vegetables is healthy since I just ate a cheeseburger and I feel great." Obviously, that evidence is very bad (for many reasons). But I think we can still agree that the conclusion is true.

The same thing applies to this argument. Just because the author argues that environmentalists lack good evidence for their conclusion doesn't mean that the environmentalists' conclusion is automatically false. After all, perhaps researchers will eventually generate evidence that proves that international debt reduces a nation's quality of life. For this reason, we shouldn't select answer choices that say or imply that the environmentalists' conclusion is false or that international debt does not reduce a nation's quality of life.