Although many customers do not make a sufficient effort to conserve water, water

游客2024-01-12  11

问题 Although many customers do not make a sufficient effort to conserve water, water companies must also be held responsible for wasteful consumption. Their own policies, in fact, encourage excessive water use, and attempts at conservation will succeed only if the water companies change their practices.
Which of the following, if true, would most strongly support the view above?

选项 A、Most water companies reduce the cost per unit of water as the amount of water used by a customer increases.
B、Most water companies keep detailed records of the quantity of water used by different customers.
C、Most water companies severely curtail the use of water during periods of drought.
D、Federal authorities limit the range of policies that can be enforced by the water companies.
E、The price per unit of water charged by the water companies has risen steadily in the last 10 years.

答案 A

解析 Argument Evaluation
Situation Water companies have policies that encourage excessive water use. Water conservation cannot succeed unless water companies change their practices.
Reasoning Which of the five pieces of information given would indicate that water companies’ policies and practices lead to wasteful water use? If the companies have policies or practices that reduce customers’ incentive to consume less water, then wasteful water consumption would be more likely to occur. Water companies would be contributing to wasteful water use and should be held accountable or that waste if water conservation is to succeed.
A Correct. Water companies’ charging customers less per additional unit of water consumed is likely to reduce customers’ incentive to avoid wasteful water use. So water companies bear some responsibility for wasteful water use.
B This shows that water companies have adequate data to indicate trends in customers’ water consumption. But this does not, by itself, indicate that water companies incentivize wasteful consumption.
C This indicates that water companies likely curtail wasteful water use during droughts, which somewhat weakens the argument.
D This information is too nonspecific to allow us to judge whether the federal authorities’ regulatory regime directly or indirectly contributes to wasteful water use.
E If anything, this information tends to weaken the argument. Over a 10-year period, because most economies experience inflation, increases in the price per unit of water would naturally occur, absent special countervailing factors. But if the increases were large, they would, if anything, tend to reduce wasteful water use.
The correct answer is A.
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