Regulations of Risemia

[pbathia]

This was from the MBA GMAT Prep test:

Editorial:

Regulations recently imposed by the government of Risemia call for an unprecedented reductions in the amounts of pollutants manufacturers are allowed to discharge into the environment. It will take costly new pollution control equipment requiring expensive maintenance to comply with these regulations. Resultant price increases for Risemian manufactured goods will lead to the loss of some export markets. Clearly therefore, annual exports of Risemian manufactured goods will in the future occur at diminished levels.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument in the editorial?

a) the need to comply with the new regulations will stimulate the development within Risemia of new pollution control equipment for which a strong worldwide demand is likely to emerge.
b) the proposed regulations include a schedule of fines for noncompliance that escalate steeply in cases of repeated noncompliance.
c) Savings from utilizing the chemicals captured by the pollution control equipment will remain far below the cost of maintaining the equipment.
d) by international standards, the levels of pollutants currently emitted by some of Risemia's manufacturing plants are not considered excessive.
e) The stockholders of most of Risemia's manufacturing corporations exert substantial pressure on the corporations to comply with environmental laws.

OE is A. I chose D,thinking that it would prevent the cost of the new pollution control equip. I really don't understand this one at all. Any thoughts???

[rschunti]

Premise-1:-Regulations recently imposed by the government of Risemia call for an unprecedented reductions in the amounts of pollutants manufacturers are allowed to discharge into the environment.
Premise-2:-It will take costly new pollution control equipment requiring expensive maintenance to comply with these regulations.
Premise-3:-Resultant price increases for Risemian manufactured goods will lead to the loss of some export markets.
Conclusion:-Clearly therefore, annual exports of Risemian manufactured goods will in the future occur at diminished levels.

Assumption is that the cost of manufactured goods will make products less competitive in the internationalmarket leading to reduced manufactured Risemian goods.

In order to weaken we need to say that manufacturing of new pollution control equipment will lead to strong exports due to strong worlwide demand. This will weaken authors assumption. Also you can try to negate this and see what happens to the assumption.

Choice "D" says according to international standards... but argiment is saying that these regulation is imposed by the government of Risemia call for an unprecedented reductions...." and it has nothing to do with intenational standards. This is out of scope.

[RonPurewal]

to keep it brief:

the passage goes from
'the loss of some export markets'
to
'annual exports of ... goods will ... diminish'

that's a logical leap. in particular, the hidden assumption is that no other export markets will step up to take the place of the ones that will be lost. if we can find an answer choice that contradicts this assumption, we can weaken the argument.

choice a does just that: it says that the new pollution-control equipment will create a new market, which will then offset the loss of the old markets. (the words 'strong worldwide demand' create a reasonable deduction that the offset will be significant enough to help make up the losses.)

do you have ?s about any of the other choices?

[tyronetan]

Can you explain to me why C is wrong?

[tim]

Sure. The conclusion here is "bad stuff is going to happen". If we want to weaken the conclusion we need to find something that will offset the bad stuff. C basically says "the good that will come of this is NOT ENOUGH to offset the bad stuff". C is at best neutral and may even strengthen the argument..

[hiphopdidi7623]

Can we learn grammars from RC or CR passages?

ex. What is Regulations' verb? (call for...or are allowed...?)

Regulations recently imposed by the government of Risemia call for an unprecedented reductions in the amounts of pollutants manufacturers are allowed to discharge into the environment.

[jnelson0612]

Can we learn grammars from RC or CR passages?

ex. What is Regulations' verb? (call for...or are allowed...?)

Regulations recently imposed by the government of Risemia call for an unprecedented reductions in the amounts of pollutants manufacturers are allowed to discharge into the environment.

Sure!

The verb here is "call". Regulations . . . call.

[gmatwork]

why is B wrong? B says that noncompliance costs money but once the companies start complying they save money. If savings are more than pollution equipment costs then companies can lower the prices and exports do well. If savings don't cover up the cost, then exports don't do well.

I guess B is wrong because it can work both ways and to weaken we really need to make additional assumption that savings will be more than costs ....

Is this reasoning correct?

[jlucero]

why is B wrong? B says that noncompliance costs money but once the companies start complying they save money. If savings are more than pollution equipment costs then companies can lower the prices and exports do well. If savings don't cover up the cost, then exports don't do well.

I guess B is wrong because it can work both ways and to weaken we really need to make additional assumption that savings will be more than costs ....

Is this reasoning correct?

Be careful about what you are trying to weaken. We are not saying that companies will make more/less money. The argument's conclusion is that "annual exports of Risemian manufactured goods will in the future occur at diminished levels." Whether these companies will make or lose money isn't necessarily relevant to the number of exports that they produce.